


Solstice

by LarissaFae



Series: Factions [1]
Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2020-06-25 22:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19754836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LarissaFae/pseuds/LarissaFae
Summary: sol·stice/ˈsōlstəs,ˈsälstəs/nounthe two times in the year when the sun reaches its highest or lowest point in the sky at noon, marked by the longest and shortest daysdaradi was a solstice child, born to be more than she was*The Faction series is ordered in roughly chronological order; however, there's some overlap between fics. When that happens, I've linked to the start of that particular fic.updates the 5th





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the shortest day brings the dawning of the light and the promise of life
> 
> or
> 
> baby daradi is the cutest fucking thing and you can quote me

It was the winter solstice when the child arrived in the world, a tiny thing with a thick shock of black hair, seemingly more intent on sleeping than being born. Her large, dark eyes stared up at her parents and older brother, then she gave a minuscule yawn and closed them.

They named her Daradi, and she was quiet, if a little willful when pushed, and followed her parents around everywhere as soon as she learned to walk. She charmed visitors as she sat in her father’s lap while he conducted business deals, and nestled next to her mother for naps as she sat at her weaving.

She was, on the whole, a sweet and caring child. She followed goslings around to make sure they got back to their mothers safely, and brought injured animals in for her father to help. Even injured Watchers were pointed out as she begged her father to help them. She didn’t want them to get hurt even more. She pointed them out every time, and every time her father had to explain to her that machines needed to be left alone, that they would hurt her if they saw her. Every time, she cried because they were hurt, and her parents held her close and cuddled her while assuring her that the creatures would be fine.

Her brother didn’t like her. He was used to being an only child, and took offense at her presence and how she took their parents’ attention, no matter how much they gave him. She was kind where he was cruel, so the servants liked her better, as well. When she wasn’t with her parents or the servants, she hid from him. He pushed her into the water reservoir several times, each time claiming it to be an accident, and she learned to fear him.

Still, though, she was a joy to her parents, proof that the Sun had favored them, and they doted on her.

*

“Papa, Papa.” He looked down as Daradi toddled after him and clung to his leg, beaming up at him. “I come, too.”

“What are you doing up so early, little sun? It’s not even dawn.”

“I not tired,” she said as she looked up at him. “I come, too.”

“No, sweetness, not today. I have to go into the city today.”

She shook her head as she pushed her lower lip out, holding him more tightly. “No, Papa, I come, too. I help.”

He knelt and smiled widely at her, brushing a bit of her glossy black hair behind her ear. She took the opportunity to cling to his neck and rub her cheek against his, and he laughed. “Well, I suppose. You will be a good girl, won’t you? Nice and quiet while I work. I have to get rent today.”

“Promise,” she swore seriously. “Ramamam is mean.”

Her father let out a slow sigh and pursed his lips before nodding. “Alright. I’m sorry, sweetness. I will talk with him. Come, get your purse and some food. We will buy you something nice while we’re in town.”

“Purse, purse, purse,” she sang as a servant brought the little pouch to her, along with a small breakfast. She followed her father out the front door after she was done, and after a while he stooped to pick her up when her little legs couldn’t carry her any further.

“We need to get you a cart to sit in,” he laughed as they entered Meridian Village. “Then I could pull you along.”

“Yes!” she giggled. “Cart! Papa, cart!”

“Maybe later, sweetness. Then again …”

It was a long walk to Meridian - the Great Elevators had yet to be finished, and it would be some years before they were. Her father thought a moment as she played with the dangling machine bits on his headdress, then nodded and carried her to a merchant.

It took a little looking, but he was eventually able to find a small cart that he could pull behind him, as well as some pillows and blankets for her to nestle in. She fell asleep during the rest of the walk, waking up to eat lunch and then relieve herself, and only once they were in the noise and bustle of the city did she fully wake.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes, then looked around in awe.

“Papa, big! It big!”

He laughed and looked over his shoulder at her, ignoring the stares from others at the sight of him pulling her along. No child her age was generally out, much less a girl child, much less being pulled along in a cart - and by her own father, at that.

“Yes, sweetness, it is indeed big. Do you like it?”

“Mmm …” She thought and scrunched her face up before shaking her head. “It loud, Papa. Too loud.”

“It is that, darling. But, we must go collect rent. Then we will stay the night here, and go home in the morning. Does that sound fun?”

She looked at him suspiciously, then grinned and nodded. “Yes!”

“Good.” He pulled her up to an inn and helped her out of her cart, then pushed the door open and flung his arms out. _“Rent, please!”_ he bellowed over the cacophony of noise.

Daradi clung to his leg and stared up and around in awe. These people weren’t Carja - they were stocky, burly with muscle, in leather and metal clothing. They smelled funny, too, and a startlingly loud cheer went up at the sight of her father.

_“Rent, please!”_ he bellowed again, and the thick woman at the bar laughed as she wiped her hands off.

“Rent? Already? Surely not, Girtaral! We paid just last week!”

“Hah!” he laughed, strolling up to the bar and leaning on it. He held his money pouch out. “Rent, please!”

Daradi watched as the woman laughed again and handed over a bag that held shards in it when her father dumped it out, counting it carefully. Rent, rent, rent. That was rent. They were here to get rent. He had said she could help.

She turned to the man nearest her and tugged on his pants, and when he looked down at her, held her own money pouch up and beamed at him.

“Rent, please!”

He laughed. “What a tiny little cog you are! You’re adorable.”

She frowned, then shook her pouch a little and smiled again. “Rent, please!”

“Oh, come on, Birtend, pay the little cog rent,” one of the women at the table told him.

He huffed a bit, but fished out a shard and dropped it into her purse. She lit up as she looked in the pouch, then grinned up at him again.

“Thank you!” She turned to the woman and held her pouch out. “Rent, please!”

The woman dropped another shard into her purse as the entire table laughed. “Here you go, little cog.”

“Thank you!”

She made her way around the room, cheerfully asking everyone for rent, and each person ruffled her hair or pinched her cheek as they gave her one shard. She finally made it back to her father, who was still talking with the woman and the man who had joined her. It took a bit to get onto the stool next to her father - a woman finally lifted her onto it - and she held her purse out to the man and woman.

“Rent, please!”

“Oh, is this little Daradi?” the man asked. “She’s adorable, Girtaral. Why haven’t you brought her around before?”

She sighed. “Rent, please!”

“She’s only three,” was the reply, then her father actually looked at her bulging purse. “What the … Daradi, where did you get all this?”

There was laughter behind them as she turned and pointed to the room. “It rent, Papa! I get rent!”

He stared at her for a moment, then at the room, and slowly covered his face. “Oh, Daradi …” She frowned a little. She’d gotten rent like she was supposed to, so she didn’t know why he wasn’t happy with her. “I’m so sorry, everyone,” he said with a raised voice. “Daradi, we get rent from Borund and Elgana, not their patrons. Go give it all back.”

Her lower lip trembled and she hesitantly held the pouch out to him. “But, Papa … rent ...”

“Oh, let her have it,” a man spoke up. Her father looked at him with raised eyebrows. “It’s just a shard each, and she’s an absolute darling.”

“And here’s our rent, too,” Borund said as he gave her two more shards. “You’re a good girl, Daradi.”

She grinned at him. “Thank you!” Then she looked at her father for approval.

He sighed and shook his head, but he was huffing with laughter. “Alright, then,” he said. “I will see you two next month.”

“If you don’t bring her back with you,” Elgana told him as he picked her up, “you’re not getting rent.”

He laughed. “We will certainly do our best.”

“Goodbye, little cog!” she and her husband called as her father walked out the door.

She leaned over his shoulder and waved cheerfully. “Bye-bye!”

Her father crouched as he settled her back in her cart, brushing her hair behind her ear and smiling at her. “You got rent, didn’t you, sweetness?”

She nodded and held her bag up. “Rent!”

“Yes, you did very good today.” He kissed her on the forehead before standing and pulling her down the street. “Do you want a sweet?” he asked over his shoulder.

She perked up and clapped. “Sweet! Yes, please!”

“Our next stop is the bakery, so we’ll get you one there.”

“Thank you, Papa!”

Getting rent at the bakery was a much calmer affair, with Daradi sitting at a table and swinging her legs as she ate a sweet pastry, and her father and another man talking in low voices. She hummed to herself before finishing the pastry off and getting up, wandering around the bakery and looking at everything. It all smelled delicious. Eventually her tummy grumbled and she toddled over to her father, tugging on his pants.

“Papa … ’koose me Papa … I hungry …”

He looked down and smiled at her. “Alright, sweetness. Go sit down, and we’ll bring you food.”

“Thank you!” She turned and went back to her seat, climbing onto the bench and sitting quietly as she waited.

“She is _such_ a well-behaved child,” the man said.

“That she is. She is the sun in my life.”

“I imagine so. Nothing like her brother - ah, my apologies ---”

There was a heavy sigh. “None needed. Ranaman is … a troubled child. We do our best with him, but … Well.”

“Ramamam is mean,” Daradi informed them solemnly. “He push me down.”

Her father sighed again. “And I will punish him for that, sweetness. I’m so sorry he does that.”

She was brought food, then, grilled maize that had been scraped off the cob, sweet maize bread, mashed-up potatoes, and roasted turkey drizzled in gravy. She eagerly started mixing her maize and potatoes - they tasted best when they were mixed together.

“Thank you!” she told the servant cheerfully.

“You’re welcome, my lady,” he told her with a smile.

She hadn’t been given a large portion at all - her parents had discovered that it was best to feed her in small amounts and have her ask for more, rather than give her larger amounts and have to press her to finish her meal. She was brought a small mug of mulberry juice, as well, and sipped it as she ate.

“Both hands,” she whispered to herself as she cradled it. “Both hands.” She was only allowed to hold her own drink if she held it with both hands. She placed it carefully back on the table and ate some more.

“Are you finished, my love?” her father asked a bit later.

Daradi looked up at him and nodded. “Yes, Papa.”

“Alright, then. Into your cart. The rest of the rent has been collected, so we can go to bed, now. See? The sun is going to sleep. What do we do when the sun goes to sleep?”

“We go sleep, too,” she answered dutifully.

“Yes, we do. That’s a good girl.”

They walked for a ways, the sky getting darker and darker, lamps along the road gradually being lit around them, and still there were merchants hawking their wares and musicians playing cheerful tunes. Daradi thought that they ought to be getting ready for bed - that was what one did when the sun went to sleep. Maybe their parents were letting them stay up late.

She was drowsy when they finally got to a medium-sized building and her father picked her up, bringing her blankets with her. He left the cart with a servant and carried her up the stairs and to a small, one-room apartment with a privy in an adjacent room. She was placed gently in the bed, and cocooned herself in the blankets as she watched her father work in nightclothes by dim candlelight.

Then there was a clatter outside, and she jumped. “Papa …”

He looked over his shoulder. “Yes, my little sun?”

“Papa, I scared.”

“Oh? Why are you scared?”

“Monsters,” she answered as voices drifted up through the window.

He smiled and got up, coming over to crouch by the bed. “Monsters?”

“Yes. Outside.”

He tilted his head and listened, then smiled again. “Those aren’t monsters, Daradi. You’re hearing people.”

“People?”

“Yes. Some people are still awake.”

She frowned. “But it bedtime.”

“Yes, for little suns like yourself. Adults sometimes stay up after the sun goes to sleep, and there are lots of them here. The city is always noisy.”

Her lower lip trembled. She didn’t like the noise. “Sleep with me,” she half-whined. “I scared.”

“Oh, darling, I still have work to do. I have to balance the ledgers, write up orders, make sure everyone gets paid …” He trailed off as she started taking huffy breaths, her eyes tearing up. Then he sighed. “Alright. I’ll lay down with you until you go to sleep. Is that fine?”

“Yes,” she whispered. He started to get in the bed with her and she shook her head. “Papa, monsters.”

“Oh, right.” He knelt down and looked under the bed. “Excuse me, monsters, please leave Daradi alone tonight. I know that she is new here, but she is very sweet. She is also far too tiny to make a good meal.” She giggled. He was always polite to the monsters. “Alright? You will leave her alone? Thank you very much.”

“Thank you, monsters,” she whispered once he straightened.

He got in the bed and tucked the covers tightly around her, holding her against his side. She relaxed, now that he was with her and he’d asked the monsters to please leave her alone. They wouldn’t get her if he asked them not to. He started humming to her after a while, and the low, steady rhythm of it lulled her. She yawned - she was tired, warm, full from dinner, and comfortable.

Eventually everything blurred, and her eyes drooped shut as her breathing evened out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> daradi meets a new baby and makes a new friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> assuming that avad is roughly 30 at the start of the game, he would have been about 11ish when hivas died, and at about 4 years older than daradi, he'd be 7 in this chapter
> 
> such a sweet baby nerd T_T

“Daradi!”

She looked up from where she was hiding, wanting to run out to her mother but also knowing that Ranaman was waiting for her somewhere. He would pounce her and push her down and pull her hair if he found her.

“Daradi! Ranaman, where did your sister go?”

“Dunno.”

She breathed a sigh of relief and carefully slid out from behind the pillar, then took the long way around to make sure her elder brother didn’t find her hiding spot. She ran up to her mother with her arms held out, and was picked up and hugged tightly.

“There you are, little sunbeam. We’re ready to go.”

“Go where, Mama?”

She got a smile. “We’re going into town to see friends of ours, then to Sun-King Hivas’ birthing day celebrations. Do you remember Lord Neurhen and Lady Pana?”

“No …”

“That’s fine. They just had a baby. Do you want to see the baby?”

Daradi perked up and nodded. “Baby! I hold baby? I careful.”

“Of course, darling.”

“Babies are disgusting,” Ranaman bit out.

“Then you don’t have to hold her, but you _do_ need to be on your best behavior. Do you understand?”

He heaved a sigh and stomped off, and Daradi hugged her mother’s neck.

“Ramamam is mean.”

Her mother kissed her cheek. “I’m so sorry, sweetness. I will make sure a servant plays with you from now on, alright?”

“Thank you, Mama.”

She was bundled into her cart - painted bright colors now, with her small handprints all over it - and her father once again pulled her to the city, but instead of the small room they’d been going to the last few months, they all walked to a large townhome. Servants carried their things inside, and Daradi looked around in awe.

“Mama, Papa, it big!”

“Yes, little sunbeam. This is where we stay when all of us are in town.”

“Ohhhhh …” She got out of her cart and held her mother’s hand. “I have toys?”

Her mother laughed. “Yes, dearest, we brought you toys.”

“Yay!”

After their things were settled and they had gotten her some toys, they left again. Daradi knelt in her cart and held onto the edge of it, looking around brightly at everything. Occasionally she would gasp in awe and frantically point out one thing or another - a large machine part, some musicians, a fire-twirler, pretty streamers - to her family. Her brother ignored her, but her parents showed appropriate enthusiasm over her discoveries. She giggled at the thunking of the cart wheels over the bridge that led them to another, smaller mesa, and they soon arrived at another townhome, where a servant met them at the door and bowed them in.

“Quiet, now,” her mother told her softly. “Lady Pana and the baby might be asleep. She’s a very new baby.”

“Shhhhh,” Daradi whispered to her father. He laughed a little and held his finger to his lips. “Shhhhh.”

She was carried up a short flight of stairs and into a large bedroom, where a burly man in clothing similar to her father’s was sitting next to a large bed, watching the woman who sat up in it nurse a very, very tiny little baby, a thin blanket tucked around her breast and obscuring it. They both looked up with broad smiles as Daradi and her family walked in.

“Girtaral, Lady Malaka,” the man said quietly. He didn’t stand, but waited until they got to him before shaking her father’s hand and kissing her mother’s. Daradi held her own hand out, and he kissed that, too. “Little Daradi. You’ve grown so much.”

“Hello,” his wife said shyly, adjusting the nursing blanket while Daradi’s father kept his gaze politely averted.

Daradi tilted her head up once he set her down and then stood on her toes to try to look over both the edge of the bed and Pana in order to see the baby better. “Baby sleeping?”

“No, eating,” she was told.

“I hold baby? Please?”

“After she’s finished, if you are very careful.”

She nodded seriously. “I careful. Both hands.”

“She gets to hold her own drink if she holds it with both hands,” her father explained. “She’s very careful.”

“Oh, I see.”

“It was an easy birth?” her mother asked.

“Oh, yes,” the man answered. “She slid _right_ out.”

“Neurhen!” Lady Pana gasped quietly, flushing.

“What?” he asked her with a smile, before brushing a bit of hair out of her face. “She did. The midwife barely caught her in time.”

“You’re impossible.”

“This is true.” He picked Daradi up and settled her next to Pana once the child had been burped. “You have to be very gentle, little Daradi.”

“I gentle.”

“Good. This is Iasia,” he told her as he helped her take the baby.

She gasped and cuddled the little girl, very gently kissing her forehead as the baby looked around. “Eezia.”

“Iasia,” Neurhen repeated. “We call her Zia. She’s too little for her full name.”

“Zia,” Daradi repeated. “Zia, Zia, Zia. Baby Zia.”

“Yes, baby Zia. Where is Ranaman?”

“Somewhere,” her father sighed.

“I doubt babies interest him, anyway.”

“Not in the slightest.”

Daradi watched baby Zia carefully. She was darker than herself, with big blue eyes and a ridge of brown hair down the center of her head that stuck straight up, giving her a perpetually-shocked look. Daradi decided that she loved her. Maybe they would be best friends - she didn’t have many friends other than the servants and the Oseram at her father’s inn. Zia looked around, then stared up at her until she gave a very tiny yawn and closed her eyes.

Once she was fully asleep, her mother took her back.

“Well,” she said, “she’s certainly well-behaved today.”

“Not usually so quiet?” Daradi’s own mother asked.

“Goodness, no,” Neurhen laughed. “She’s usually making some sort of racket or another. She especially likes to make one at night. _All_ night.”

“Our favorite song is ‘ah-ah-ah’,” Pana laughed.

“Ah-ah-ah,” Daradi repeated in a sing-song voice. “Ah-ah-ah.”

“You’re not using a wet-nurse?”

“Perhaps for the next one.” Pana looked down at little Zia and gently touched her cheek. “My mother had to breastfeed me, and said it was much better than having a wet-nurse. She could afford one by the time my sister was born, but she said she felt closer to me when she herself fed me. So …”

“Well,” Daradi’s mother said warmly, “as long as it works out for you.”

“You should try it for your next one,” Neurhen encouraged them. “Watching one’s wife feed one’s child … It is _absolutely_ breathtaking.”

Pana blushed and looked down. “Oh, stop.”

“It is,” he told her, leaning over to kiss her forehead. “The two suns in my life, snuggled together. It is all I could ever wish for.”

“Perhaps,” Daradi’s father said.

Daradi looked up as he kissed her mother’s cheek.

“Mama have baby?”

“Not yet, darling,” she was told. “In a few years, maybe.”

“Babies come from mamas,” she told Pana. “They live in mamas’ tummies.”

Pana giggled and nodded. “Ah, yes. Yes they do.”

“Papas put them there.”

That got another laugh. “Yes, that’s right.”

“I love Zia.”

“And Zia will love you, as well,” Neurhen assured her. Pana yawned, and he stood up. “But come, let us let Pana and Zia sleep. You can hold her later.”

Daradi sighed and pouted, but kissed Zia’s forehead again and let Neurhen pick her up and set her on the floor. “Ok …”

“You would do much better living in town,” he said as they left the room.

Her father shrugged. “Possibly, but our family has had our estate for generations. Besides, we like the quiet.”

“It too noisy,” Daradi put in helpfully as she followed them, holding tightly to one of her father’s false sleeves. “Too big, too noisy.”

“Is that so?” Neurhen asked her with a grin.

She nodded firmly. “Yes.”

“What if your husband wants to live in the city after you get married?”

She gave him a _look._ “Ew.”

“Ew?”

“I no like boys.”

The adults were laughing. “And what _do_ you like? Girls?”

“I like naps and snacks and Mama and Papa and birbs and foxes and boars and sunshine and flowers and bunnies and …”

She kept listing her favorite things until they got to a living area, and her mother had to cover her mouth to get her to stop.

“Alright, little sun. You don’t want to get married?”

“No, I marry Papa.”

That got more laughs and her father set her on a majlis couch. “But I’m married to Mama.”

She hadn’t thought of that. “… Oh.”

“What about a husband who is just like me? One who will love you forever.”

“Mmm …” Daradi frowned as she thought about it, then nodded. “Ok. Not like Ramamam. Ramamam mean to me.”

“No, not like your brother. Are you hungry?”

“Yes!”

“She’s always hungry,” her mother laughed. “She’s like a little hummingbird, always flitting around and eating.”

Daradi had been fed and was playing on the floor of the living area when there was a wail from upstairs. She scrambled up and flung herself into her mother’s lap with a cry of alarm, but the adults stayed calm. Neuhren got up and went upstairs, coming back down after a while with little Zia in his arms. She was still making grumbly, fussy noises, but they weren’t nearly as loud as her initial cry.

“Oh, stop, you silly thing,” her father told her affectionately as he sat down and offered her a knuckle to suckle on. “She isn’t hungry - she just wants to be up. Pana went back to sleep. Was she loud, Daradi? Did she scare you?”

Daradi nodded as she turned her head slightly to look at the two. Then she buried her face in her mother’s bosom again.

“Do you want to hold her again?”

She thought a moment, then nodded. “Yes, please.” She got down and went over to him, climbing up onto the majlis couch and holding her arms out. Neurhen placed Zia carefully in them, and watched as she rocked side to side, singing wordlessly. Zia watched her and gurgled until Neurhen took her again some time later. Daradi whined, but her mother came over and picked her up.

“We have to go, darling. Don’t you want to celebrate our Sun-King?”

“No,” she grumbled. “I want to hold baby Zia.”

She got a kiss on her temple. “We will visit later, sweetness. Give Pana my love, Neurhen, when she wakes.”

“Of course! I will give her mine, as well.” He walked them to the door, and pinched Daradi’s cheek. She giggled. “Be good, little sun.”

She hid her face as the adults said their goodbyes and Ranaman was dragged out and with them, and then they joined a flow of people headed to the main mesa. Safe from her brother in her mother’s arms, Daradi lifted her head and looked around, occasionally waving and chirping a hello to someone who happened to look their way. She giggled each time she got a wave and a smile in return.

They eventually made their way to a large arena surrounded by tiers of seats, settling in the bottom tier of ones that were just far enough from the ornate royal balcony to have a clear view of two of the three seats in it, the center and largest one lavishly decorated. Daradi wiggled off of her mother’s lap and hopped up a bit to get her arms over the balustrade that circled the arena, watching the seats fill up as her feet dangled above the stone floor. Eventually a cheer went up from across the arena, rippling through the crowd as a group of people - led and surrounded by soldiers in elaborate, shiny armor - appeared at the entrance that led to the Temple of the Sun.

The foremost was a tall man with a large, silver beard, stylized bronze and gold sunbursts rising behind his head and over the winged crown he wore. The wings and center hexagon were white metal, the fabric of the crown itself red. Two long pieces of white fabric fell over his shoulders, embroidered with gold hexagons and covering the bronze plates that criss-crossed his chest, and the white silk pants he wore with a thick red velvet belt over them that hung down on the sides, weighted down by curve machine parts made to look like wings.

“Sun-King Hivas,” her mother murmured. “And Prince Jiran behind him.”

Prince Jiran had the same square-jawed face as his father, but rather than smiling and occasionally waving to the crowd, his expression was neutral and he merely nodded once in a while, his hair almost blindingly white in the sunlight. Two young boys followed him, the taller almost an exact replica of his father and grandfather, and the shorter a slighter child, his face narrower, his hair black but his skin the same deep tan as the rest of his family. All three princes’ crowns were identical to the king’s, but their outfits were layers of ornate robes that covered their entire bodies.

“Those are Prince Kadaman and Prince Avad - Prince Kadaman is the eldest,” her mother told her.

Daradi stared at them in awe. She had thought that her father was extravagantly-dressed, but the royal family put everyone around them to shame. Prince Kadaman ran between his grandfather and the black-skinned, black-haired man who was behind Prince Avad. He tried to push his brother a few times, but the black-haired man calmly reached out to stop him each time. When they finally reached the middle of the Sun-Ring, Sun-King Hivas welcomed everyone and announced that Prince Jiran would be joining the athletic feats to come, then Jiran stayed in the ring while his father and children went back to the entrance they’d come from, climbing the stairs behind it and walking around to the royal balcony. Hivas sat on the wide middle throne, while the young princes settled in the chairs on either side of it. Prince Avad was sitting closest to Daradi and her family, looking shyly around with his head lowered and his shoulders hunched. He looked sad, so when he looked her way, Daradi reached her little hand out and waved at him, smiling cheerfully when the motion caught his attention and he looked over.

He turned back quickly and stared down at his clasped hands, but there was a slight, hesitant smile tugging at the corner of his lips and he kept glancing over. Daradi waved each time, and eventually he lifted his hand very briefly in a small wave.

“Mama,” she said over her shoulder, “he waved. Prince Vavad waved.”

Her mother laughed. “Prince _Avad,_ dear, and did he? Then you have been blessed. Pay attention, now. His Radiance is going to speak.”

Daradi ignored her and concentrated on waving at the prince each time he looked anywhere near her. Whatever the king was talking about held no importance to the three-year-old, and she liked making the prince smile. She hoped that her parents would let her play with him later. Maybe he liked to swim. Daradi liked to swim, when Ranaman wasn’t around to try to hold her under. Maybe his father would let him collect rent with her - the noisy Oseram might scare him, but she would be there to protect him.

The arena was large enough that several activities could go on at once - musicians and dancers in one area, acrobatics in another, wrestling and other shows of strength in yet another. After a while, the youngest prince looked carefully at his grandfather before turning to the left and slowly pulling a book out of his robes, continuing to look over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t caught. He alternated between reading and smiling at Daradi, and sometimes waiving. He looked over his shoulder once in a while to make sure that his grandfather was distracted and didn’t catch him reading, but he couldn’t keep his guard up all the time, and Daradi let out a small gasp when the Sun-King started to turn his head to look at his grandson.

The black-skinned man leaned over, then, between the two, and murmured something to the king. Daradi hadn’t seen him come around the back of the king’s chair. He placed one hand on Prince Avad’s shoulder, and the young boy jumped and hid his book quickly, the king’s advisor keeping the king distracted enough to not notice. Daradi let out a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to the prince to get in trouble - she wouldn’t be able to play with him if he did.

The activities paused briefly a while later, as the royal family go up to leave.

“Bye-bye!” Daradi called, reaching out to wave once more.

She got another shy smile, then, when they were all down in the ring again, the prince took his father’s hand and said something. His father shook him off without even looking at him, and the prince ducked his head and hunched his shoulders before trying again. This time Prince Jiran looked down with thinned lips, and Avad looked hopeful as he turned and pointed behind them, toward Daradi. She beamed and waved, then gasped when Prince Jiran scowled and smacked the back of his son’s head, making him stumble, before leaning over and yanking on his arm, whispering something angry as the young prince stumbled again. The boy started to nod quickly and whisper what were probably apologies and possibly pleas for forgiveness, and stole one last, sad look at Daradi before he was ushered off by the advisor.

She scowled at Prince Jiran’s back before sliding off the balustrade and turning to her parents.

“Prince Jirjan is mean,” she declared.

“Daradi!” Her mother leaned forward and put her hand over her mouth, looking around to make sure no one had heard. “You mustn’t say such things!”

Daradi pulled away, still scowling. “He mean, Mama,” she insisted. “He hit Prince Vavad, like this.” She hit the back of her own head and mimicked stumbling forward. “He pull his arm.” She demonstrated again. “He mean like Ramamam.”

Her mother sighed and pulled her into her lap, hugging her tightly. “No, Daradi,” she murmured. “Prince Jiran loves his sons. He just disciplines them differently than you’re used to.”

“He mean,” Daradi insisted sullenly. Then she brightened a bit. _Her_ parents would never be mean to him like that. “I play with Prince Vavad? Please?”

The celebratory activities had resumed upon the royal family’s exit, and her father laughed. “Oh, if only, my little sun. He is a lonely boy, I am sure - nothing like the rest of his family.”

“He takes after his late mother,” her own mother agreed. “She was the kindest, gentlest soul, Sun guide her.”

“Where she go?”

That got a sad sigh as her parents looked at each other, making the faces that said they were communicating without wanting her to know what it was about. Then her mother squeezed her tightly.

“She passed away, dearest, after Prince Avad was born. She walks in the sun’s light, now, like the fox you found last week.”

That meant … that meant that the prince didn’t have a mother. Daradi’s eyes started tearing up, and she stood in her mother’s lap, holding her cheeks in both tiny hands and looking at her very seriously. “You be his mama, Mama? You good mama. Please?”

Her mother covered her hands with a smile. “I can’t, Daradi. Prince Avad has his own family.”

“But no mama.”

“No, sweetnest. No mama. Prince Jiran may take another wife, though, and he will have a secondmother, then.”

“I love him,” Daradi declared. “I protect him.”

That had her parents laughing. “Oh?” her father asked. “Are you going to marry him?”

“No, I marry Zia. I be Vavad’s mama.”

She got more laughter, and kisses on her cheeks. “I don’t think that will work, darling,” her mother said, “but perhaps one day you two might meet, and be friends.”

“Yes,” Daradi nodded as she sat down again and watched a fire-breather near them. “We be friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look i'm not saying that jiran was always an asshole to avad and that daradi's flawless, i'm just saying that jiran was always an asshole to avad and that daradi's flawless


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daradi meets her parents' twins, Zia is a genius feral child, and Daradi is put in charge of an inn full of Oseram.

“Daadi! Daadi! Wait, Daadi!”

She slowed down and waited for Zia to catch up, then took her hand. “Come on, we’ll be late.”

“Pretty!”

The toddler tried to veer off to look at some jewelry, but Daradi pulled her back.

“No, Zia, Mama and Papa are waiting for us.” Well, hopefully they would be back by the time she got Zia under control. “Look, soldiers!”

Her eyes widened and she obediently followed the soldiers. “Oooooh …”

Daradi giggled. Zia always liked following soldiers around - she liked how shiny their uniforms were. It got her going in the right direction, at least. She directed the younger child’s attention to whichever soldier was headed the way they needed to go to get to her family’s townhouse, and soon they were walking up the stairs to it. She pushed the door open and beamed up at the servant standing there.

“We’re home!”

“Very good, my lady,” was the response. “Your bath is waiting for you.”

“Bath!” Zia squeaked, pulling her dress up.

“No, Zia!” Daradi pulled it back down quickly. Zia’s lower lip trembled. “No, we have to wait until we get to the bathing room. Come on.”

_“Ugh.”_

She was a lot happier once they were splashing in the bath, though, squealing and standing up to dump water over Daradi’s head. Daradi laughed as they played. Their parents were still gone, so the servants were watching them and Ranaman. Zia had cried about her parents being gone until she and Daradi had been allowed to go down the street - always in view of the townhouse - and get a couple of pastries. It had taken longer than expected, because Zia was distracted by anything and everything. That turned out to be a good thing, though; while Zia was chasing bubbles, Daradi heard two of the servants talking about Ranaman getting tired of waiting for them and going to sleep.

Their bath was interrupted by a female servant coming in with towels and fresh outfits.

“Come now,” she told them, “you must get ready. Your parents are almost here.”

“Mama? Papa?” Zia perked up and waded over to the woman as Daradi got out on her own. “Mama! Papa!” She wriggled out of the maid’s grasp and ran to the bathing room door, and the maid sighed as she chased after her.

“Zia! Zia, come back! You must get dressed!”

“Mama! Papa!” could be heard down the hall, as well as Zia’s shrieks of laughter.

Daradi didn’t mind. She had been dressing herself since she herself had been three, and she was very good at it. She hardly needed any help with the complicated dress of a noble child at all, now. As soon as she was as dressed as she could get herself on her own, she skipped out of the bathing room and to the living area, beaming as she threw herself at her father.

“Papa!”

Then she pulled up short.

Something was wrong.

Her father wasn’t wearing what he’d been wearing when he’d left that morning. He’d shaved his beard. There was something else, too - something she couldn’t quite define. But it was wrong. It was _wrong._

“P, Papa?”

Her lower lip trembled a bit as he grinned at her and knelt, holding his arms out, and she backed up and then ran to her mother, where she pulled up short again.

“M, Mama?” she whimpered as she stared up at the woman who looked exactly like her mother, but who definitely wasn’t.

“Oh, little sunbeam,” her father - maybe? - boomed as he scooped her up. She sighed with relief as he hugged her - this one looked and acted and even smelled right. “Don’t cry! This is your aunt and uncle. Do you remember them?” Daradi hid her face in his shoulder as she shook her head. “You were very tiny when you met them last. Oh, my sun, my sun, don’t be afraid. Do you know what twins are?” Daradi thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Well, come in and sit down, everyone.”

“She is truly adorable,” the woman who was _not_ her mother said. But she sounded like her mother. Daradi refused to let her father go when he tried to move her to his side.

“She is, thank you. Sometimes she gets shy, and she wasn’t expecting all this. Daradi, look at me.” He tapped the back of her head until she whined in irritation and glared at him out of the corner of her eye. He was smiling. “Twins are when a mama has _two_ babies, instead of one. They usually look very similar, but sometimes one is a male and the other is a female. So, your grandmother - my mother - had myself and your uncle at the same time, and your mother’s mother had Mama and _her_ sister at the same time.”

Daradi thought that through. She knew that she had an aunt and an uncle, and she knew that she had met them before, but she hadn’t known about this _twins_ thing. She thought about it some more, then finally twisted around as Zia ran screaming through the room, still naked, her father running after her with breathless apologies. She looked her aunt and uncle over suspiciously, then looked up at her father.

“Are me and Ranaman twins?”

That got a laugh. “No, darling, no. You two aren’t twins. This is your Uncle Udivak, and Aunt Geori, and their spouses, Lonat and Araviy. Can you say hello?”

Well, if she _had_ to. She lowered her head and looked up at them through her eyelashes. “Hello,” she murmured.

She got a kiss on her temple for her efforts. “There’s a good girl. Now, are you hungry?”

“A little.”

“Well, lunch is being set out.”

“I hear that you help your papa get rent,” her aunt said.

Daradi shrugged and nodded. “Yes.”

Zia came screaming through the living area again, still naked, but this time dangling in the air by her ankle. Her father sighed.

“Papa! Papa! Down! I get down! Down, Papa!”

“My apologies. This _helion_ is impossible.”

The toddler’s laughter suddenly stopped, and she stared around at everyone with wide eyes that had gradually turned green as she’d gotten older.

“Daradi and I went to get pastries. They were very yummy, and I liked them very much.” There was a moment of shocked silence as she nodded, then her face split into a beaming smile and she started screaming with laughter again. “Papa, down! I hungry, Papa! _Papaaaaa!”_

Daradi’s uncle blinked a few times, then raised one finger. “Did she just …”

“Oh, yes,” Neurhen said. “She does that sometimes. It is … quite odd, but I suppose also a blessing. Our Zia is incredibly intelligent - _too_ intelligent, at times. Ah, excuse me. Pana?”

She got up with a laugh and took Zia, who had resorted to a low, constant _‘rrrrr’_ as she hung in her father’s grasp.

“Excuse us. We will meet you in the dining area.”

“Come along, Daradi.” She took her father’s hand and stayed pressed against his side as they walked. Ranaman and a boy who looked very similar to her mother were already at the table, and Ranaman narrowed his eyes at her and tightened his grip on his knife. She hid her face in her father’s pant leg. “This is your cousin, Tyrug. Do you remember him at all?”

She got up in her chair and pulled her cup and plate close, so Ranaman couldn’t take her food. “No …” If he was Ranaman’s friend, she wasn’t going to like him.

“Are you excited for the equinox festival?” her aunt asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Oh? Why not? Sun-King Jiran will be there.”

“He’s mean.”

Eyebrows went up as her parents sighed. Her uncle coughed.

“Ah … why do you say that?”

“He was mean to Prince Avad. He hit him and pulled him.”

“It has been _three_ years,” her father sighed, “and she is _still_ upset about that. Little sunbeam, you must not say such things about our Sun-King, do you hear me? He is guided by the Sun Himself, and knows best how to deal with his children.”

Daradi heaved a sigh and stared down at her plate as a servant filled it and her glass. “Mean,” she muttered, but didn’t bring it up again.

Later that night, the adults’ voices drifted to her as she got up to use the privy. She had to wriggle out from under Zia to do it - the toddler was using her as a bed - and when she was done, she went to the top of the stairs to listen.

“--- don’t know,” her uncle was saying. “The Banuk and Oseram investigated after the explosion, when the smoke cleared, and say the mountain had just … cracked. As if it were an egg. It has been two years, already. Do you think that His Radiance will address it?”

“If all we have are rumors ---”

“We all sat the smoke, though, and now there is talk of machines becoming more aggressive - not running from humans, at least.”

“Well,” her father sighed, “I suppose that we will have to wait to see what His Radiance decides to do about it.”

Daradi’s heart fluttered as she backed away and then hurried back to her room. Something bad had happened shortly after Sun-King Jiran had taken the throne - she herself had seen the smoke in the north - and the machines were angry about it. She hoped that they felt better soon. She climbed back into bed and was promptly laid on again by Zia. She shifted a bit to get comfortable, and it was a long time before she could go back to sleep.

***

The next day, they all went to the equinox festivities. Daradi laughed as she played with her small group of friends, and surprisingly, Tyrug was the one who most often kept Ranaman away from them. She wanted to sit close to the dais in the Sun-Ring again, as she wanted to do at every celebration, to make sure that she could wave to Prince Avad and maybe cheer him up. Her parents had learned their lesson, though, and sat far enough away that if she did wave, it wouldn’t be seen. She wasn’t happy about it. They didn’t care.

“Do you want to go get rent?” her father asked later, holding her on one shoulder. “I know it’s a bit early, but Borund and Elgana would _love_ to see your dress.”

She nodded eagerly. “Yes!”

“Excellent!” He trotted a bit, which made her bounce up and down and laugh, and when they got to the inn and pushed the door open they both cried out in unison.

_“Rent, please!”_

“You’re a whole _week_ early!” Elgana exclaimed as she turned. Then she put one hand on her thick bosom and gasped. “Oh, _Daradi!_ Little cog, you look _wonderful!_ Come here, let me look at you!”

Daradi giggled as her father handed her over and Elgana ooh’d and ahh’d over her outfit. Her headdress was a veritable sunburst of thinly-pounded bronze that had been cut and sanded to look like Glinthawk feathers. There were two layers, the front painted white with gold circuitry inlays, and the back visible in the spaces between the front feathers, left bronze, and with white circuitry inlays. The bronze headband they were attached to was a bit thicker than the feathers in order to hold them, and curved forward like a widow’s peak, while leaving her silky black hair loose and flowing in the back. Her mother had very delicately drawn circles and lines under her eyes.

Rather than dipping down like her mother’s dress, the light tan silk top of Daradi’s went up past her collarbone, though it did leave her arms bare, and once it hit her waist it narrowed to a rectangle that stopped about six inches from the bottom of her green silk skirt. It had thick bronze embroidery on the edges, and two gold elongated hexagons in the middle. The bottom of her thin silk belt had more delicately-wrought bronze pieces hanging from it, and her silk bracers matched her top, with bronze cuffs on either end and a thin strip of bronze down the outside that held five short feather-shaped pieces of bronze. Her little choker was bronze, as well, with a small white machine piece dangling from the front, and the fabric of her shoes matched her skirt.

“Are you sure you aren’t a princess?” Borund ask. He, too, had come up to admire her.

Daradi laughed and shook her head. “No!”

“Really? Because you look so nice, you _must_ be a princess.”

“Papaaaaa,” Daradi giggled, “they think I’m a _princess!”_

Her father’s eyes widened as he let out a small gasp. “You mean you _aren’t?”_

She sighed. _“No,_ Papa, I’m your _daughter. You_ aren’t the king. You’re nicer.”

Borund chuckled as he set her down and gave her a light tap on the rear to get her going. “Go get your rent, little cog.”

Daradi opened her purse and skipped around, cheerfully asking for rent. The regulars happily paid her, and bullied anyone who wasn’t used to the routine into it. There was one man by the front door, though, who absolutely refused, crossing arms that were probably at least as thick as Daradi over his chest and glowering down at her.

“I don’t owe you a thing, kid. Go on, scram.”

“Pay her the damn shard,” the man across from him said. “It’s just one.”

“And there’s at least fifty people in here. The kid’s what, five? Too damn old to be begging for money. And a noble, too.”

Daradi stood there nervously, biting her lower lip, her purse half-pulled back to her chest as she looked between the two men.

“Uhm, you, you don’t have to …” she started shyly.

“Oh, nonsense,” a woman said. “Look, she’s been coming here for three years and getting rent, so you just shut up and give her the shard. She’s too adorable to not pay.”

“Kid ain’t adorable at a- _augh!”_

He had been lifted into the air and thrown at and out the door, tumbling several yards as Daradi let out a frightened scream and ran for her father. Elgana crossed her arms over her chest as she stood in the doorway and yelled out at the man.

“Don’t let me _ever_ see your ugly mug in here again! That’s no way to treat a child - and the landlord’s daughter, no less! Get out of here!”

Her father had picked her up as she started crying, and held her tightly.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Borund laughed and gave her one last shard. “Don’t be, little spark. You did nothing wrong. Someday you’ll be too old to get your shards, but that day ain’t today.”

It took a while to calm her down, and she got a handful more shards from a few patrons for the trouble, but eventually she was calm and sipping on some juice, sitting on the bar and swinging her legs as she surveyed the inn and made sure everyone was behaving. Her father and the two Oseram were talking in low voices at the other end of the bar, and Elgana had loudly left her in charge.

“Be nice!” she called to two women who had started arguing. They looked over and she shook her finger very firmly at them three times, then they went back to talking quietly. A man ambled up to order a pie from the barmaid, and Daradi frowned at him. “Did you eat your dinner?”

He huffed a little, but was smiling. “Yeah, kid.”

 _“All_ of your dinner?”

Now the Oseram sitting on either side of her were trying not to laugh. “Yeah.”

She looked at him suspiciously, then around him to the table he’d been sitting at. “Let me see your plate.”

He frowned as the two Oseram burst into loud guffaws, but she raised her chin and shook her finger very firmly at him three times, so he went back, picked a plate up, and brought it to her. She looked it over critically - there was a bit of food left, yes, but it was only a bite or so.

“Hmmmmm … Ok!” she finally declared. “You can have dessert!”

“Thanks,” he laughed, and paid the barmaid before going back to his table.

A few more Oseram got up to show her their empty plates and get her permission to have dessert, and Daradi made one or two take a final bite, but ended up approving them all. She was examining a woman’s plate when her father, Borund, and Elgana came back.

“If you don’t leave this inn to her,” the woman laughed, “we’re rioting.”

“You can have dessert,” Daradi told her. “You did very good, eating all your food.”

She got her cheek pinched. “Thank you.”

“Do you like being in charge, little sunbeam?” her father asked.

Daradi nodded. “Yes. It’s nice.”

“Well, good. Perhaps I will leave the inn to you when the Sun takes me.”

“No, you won’t ever die,” she told him.

He kissed her cheek. “We all pass into the Sun’s light, my love, but hopefully it won’t be for a long, long time. Are you ready to go? The sun has nearly set, and you can have sparklers after evening prayers.”

“Ok! Be good!” she called before letting him lift her to the ground. She got laughter and assurances that the Oseram would, indeed, behave, then said goodbye to Borund and Elgana and held her father’s hand as they left. “Elgana threw that man.”

“That she did, dearest.”

She looked around as the wind blew bits of her hair over her cheeks. “Was I bad?”

“No, not at all. Borund and Elgana are very protective of you, is all.” He smiled down at her and squeezed her hand. “If you are _ever_ in trouble, and you mother and I aren’t around, I want you to go _right_ to them, alright? They will keep you safe.”

She nodded. “Yes, Papa.”

“Any news, brother?” her uncle asked when they had gotten back to the Sun-Ring.

He shook his head. “Just more rumors. But they will let us know if they hear anything more substantial.” He took two sparklers and knelt, handing them to her. “We can light these after prayers, alright?”

“Yes, Papa.”

Prayers were a calm affair, and afterward, Daradi ran around with her sparklers as she laughed. Zia followed her as fast as she could, demanding she be given a sparkler, but Daradi refused to give one to her.

“I want!”

“No, Zia!”

_“I. Want!”_

“No!” She skidded to a stop when she nearly ran into a soldier, and he glanced down at them with a slight smile. “I’m sorry,” she told him.

“I want!”

“No, Zia, you’re too tiny!” she cried out when the toddler used her distraction to jump up and try to take one. She held them above her head as Zia started to cry and clung to her, reaching up for them. “Papa!” she called out. “Zia’s trying to take a sparkler! Zia, _stop! Papaaaaa!”_

She wasn’t expecting the soldier to kneel and pick Zia up. “Come here, little sun.”

Zia’s eyes went wide as she started patting his bronze helmet and breastplates, chasing the reflections of the torches in them. “Oooooh …”

“I am _so_ sorry, sir,” Neurhen said as he hurried up, reaching for his daughter. “She loves anything shiny. I am _so ---”_

The soldier laughed and waved him off. “No apologies needed. My daughter is just as willful. A fair bit older, though. Here you go, little sun, go back to your father.”

Zia whined a bit, but her father handed her a round bit of bronze that had something in it that made noise, and she shook it gleefully.

“Thank you, uhm …”

“Cloid,” the soldier told Daradi when she hesitated. He dropped his hand to ruffle her hair behind her headdress. “You enjoy the celebrations.”

“Thank you!” She ran off to get more sparklers, as hers had died down. “Papa! Papa, Zia is being bad!”

“She’s three,” she was told distractedly. “Of course she is.”

“She tried to take my sparklers!”

“She will grow out of it.” He handed her two more and kissed her forehead before lighting them. “Go play.”

She sighed, disappointed that that was all the response she was going to get regarding Zia’s naughtiness, but ran off to play anyway, sketching every glyph she knew with her sparklers between running around, and not stopping until her father picked her up to take her back home and to bed. Before she fell asleep, she hoped that Prince Avad had had as fun a time as she had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _narrator voice:_ avad did not, in fact, have as fun a time as daradi did


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ranaman is a total and utter creep but not all of his buddies are complete shitheads, and that's a nice family you've got there, Neurhen. It'd be a shame if something ... happened to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's the threat of sexual assault in this chapter, but no actual assault.

Ranaman was watching her. It wasn’t the same narrow-eyed look he usually gave her - this time his eyes were crawling over her body, making her nervous on levels she hadn’t known were there. She lowered her head over the mathematics text their father had her working through, one whose problems had practical, real-life relevance in regards to business management. She wished it was cold enough to wear even a light blanket over her shoulders, but it rarely got that cold even in the winter, and they were in the height of summer. Even her thin silk gown was too hot.

“We should go into town.”

The suddenness of his words had Daradi jumping, not to mention the congeniality of his tone and the swiftness with which he dropped his legs from the table they were resting on and stood, walking purposefully to her. She blinked up at him; she had been startled enough that it was too late to jump up and out of his reach.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he told her firmly, “we should go into town. Buy you something nice. Perhaps do midday prayers at the Temple - you would like that, wouldn’t you?”

Daradi swallowed sharply, watching him with wary eyes as she leaned away. He was towering over her, imposing in the security of the multiple layers that men got to wear, making her feel even more vulnerable in the delicateness of her own outfit.

“I … But why? I don’t need anything in town. And I don’t feel well.” She had been oddly fatigued the last few days, and crankier than usual, to boot.

He was starting to glare, now, and grabbed her upper arm, pulling her up despite her cry of protest. “Because I want to go to town, and I want you to come with me. Hurry, now. Tell our parents that we went into town when they get back, girl,” he ordered one of the servants. She nodded and bobbed a curtsy, then Ranaman was pulling Daradi out the front door.

“Stop! Ranaman, I don’t want to go!” She struggled, but he just tightened his grip - and oddly, he didn’t dig his fingers in like he normally did.

“Daradi, I want to buy you a present. Don’t you want a present?” he asked with sickly sweetness.

“No! Let me go!”

He rounded on her, jerking her close and having to lean down a fair bit to get his face close to hers. “We are _going_ into town, you stupid sow,” he hissed, “and you are _not_ going to protest anymore - not if you don’t want to get beat. Is that clear?”

“Father will see the bruises,” she gasped. “He’ll ask questions. Let me go, Ranaman, _please!”_ She cried out in pain as he backhanded her, ducking her head and hunching her shoulders to stop any more strikes.

“Shut up,” he snapped. “Stop sniveling.”

He walked so quickly that Daradi kept stumbling as she tried to keep up, and he only slowed and loosened his grip on her arm when they came into view of a city guard at the edge of the village. She wanted to yell for help, but Ranaman was her elder brother and within his right to do most anything he pleased with and to her, and so the guard would do nothing but tell her to obey him. She wiped the tears from her face instead, because if she showed any sign of distress in front of strangers, Ranaman would beat her in places that their parents wouldn’t see. He ignored her as they took the very basic elevators up to Meridian, then pulled her through town, and she was out of breath by the time he pushed her at a table.

“Sit. Redo your makeup.” She obeyed as he walked to a food vendor, and was surprised when he brought food and drink for both of them back. He set hers in front of her with another sickly-sweet smile and mock-bow. “Eat, my lady.”

“Why are you doing this?” she whispered as she lowered her head and obeyed him.

“Because you’re my baby sister, and I love you.” She snorted quietly, and when she was finished he was pulling her up again and to a cosmetics stall, looking over their perfumes critically and then buying the one he liked. “Put this on. Here, clean your teeth.”

“Ranaman ---” He twitched his hand up just a bit, but it was enough to have her flinching and doing as she had been told. They moved on to a dress stall, where he bought her a new outfit, then forced her to a privy to change.

He looked her over after she was done, then nodded and took her by the elbow, walking purposefully. “We’re meeting some friends of mine,” he told her as they approached a large warehouse, “and I want you to be nice to them. Do you understand? _Very_ nice to them. Well?”

He’d jerked her arm a bit, and Daradi nodded as quickly as possible, shaking.

“Good!” He sounded pleased, and knocked sharply on the door. A fair-haired noble opened it, rather than a servant, and looked them up and down with thin lips and narrow eyes. “Eltak,” he said warmly, bowing from the waist. “A pleasure, as always. This is my sister, Daradi, like I promised.”

She gave the man a curtsy, keeping her gaze on the ground. The man just huffed and stepped back, and Ranaman led her inside and up a flight of stairs, then down a long hallway and through a door. Her heart was pounding - she still didn’t know why he had done all this, but she was starting to get a suspicion, and she didn’t like it at all.

“Derman!” he said cheerfully. “How are you today?”

“Heartbroken,” was the rumbling baritone that reached her, “because I am still without my five hundred shards. This is your sister?”

“Oh, yes.” Ranaman pushed her forward. “Say hello, Daradi. Look at the man.”

She curtsied as she hesitantly raised her eyes. The man was massive, looking more like the worker of a forge than a Carja noble. His brown hair was cut tight against his skull, but his beard was braided much the way Ranaman’s was.

“Sun’s blessings, my lord,” she whispered, trying not to flinch when he got up and came around his desk, walking around her.

“Sun’s blessings,” he murmured. He reached out and ran his fingers across the back of her neck, letting her hair slide through them as she shuddered. “How old are you?”

“Th, thirteen, my lord.”

“Hmm.” He took her by the chin and raised her head, tilting it this way and that as he looked her over. He rested his hand against the side of her neck after a moment, his thumb pressing against her throat as he used the pressure to make her straighten and lean back. She let out an inadvertent whimper when he moved her heavy machine-part necklace and looked at her breasts. “Are you a virgin?”

“Pure as the summer rain,” Ranaman said. “What do you say? An hour for every hundred shards? We could add interest and you could have her all night, if you liked.”

“No …” Daradi’s eyes had filled with tears and her lips were trembling as she tried not to cry. Ranaman was trying to give her to this man in order to settle a debt. Her heart pounded and she was afraid she was going to start screaming.

“Mmm … She _is_ lovely, and she _is_ a virgin,” Derman rumbled as he pressed his palm right above her breast, “but she is _also_ thirteen. Perhaps if she were a few years older, we could work something out, but not now. I am not going to hurt you, child,” he told her gently. “You have no cause to fear me.”

But if she were older, she would. Daradi nodded as she trembled like a leaf, and when she stole a glance at her brother, his lips were thinned and he was faintly snarling as he dug into his belt and pulled out a bag of shards, handing them to Derman without a word. The massive man went to his desk and counted them, occasionally looking up at the two of them, then nodded.

“Everything is in order, then. My pleasure doing business with you, my lord, my lady. You are free to go.”

“Sun’s blessings,” Ranaman said tightly as he took Daradi’s arm.

“Sun’s blessings,” she whispered, looking down once again.

“Sun’s blessings,” was the warm reply. “And good luck, Ranaman. You will need it.”

Her brother let out a short noise and turned them, walking them out and then, when they were outside and out of sight from anyone else, turning sharply and pressing her back against the sun-warmed stone wall, raising his finger in her face.

“If anyone else asks,” he hissed, “you are sixteen. Do you hear me? _Sixteen,_ or I will throw you off the mesa. Is that clear?”

She was trying not to cry again as she nodded. She should tell her father. He would make Ranaman leave her alone.

“And if you tell Father,” he went on, as if he had read her mind, “they will _never_ find your body. I will take you into the jungle and leave you for the machines. _Do you understand?”_ She nodded again, and then he smiled and brushed her hair behind her shoulders. She shuddered at his touch. “Good. Come on. We have a few more stops to make, then we can do midday prayers in the Temple. You like the Temple, don’t you?”

She did. She loved the Temple, loved doing prayers there. Ranaman was talking to her as if he were cajoling a child. He was trying to bribe her into behaving. She wanted to scream, but nodded anyway.

“Good!”

He kissed her forehead and then took her arm gently, leading her off. Their next three stops yielded no results, but he murmured something to the servant that greeted them at the fourth one, and after a few minutes they were let in, and the skinny man in the living area started to smile as soon as he laid eyes on her. He had been lounging on a majlis couch and sat up, gesturing them over.

“Ranaman, my friend! And this must be your sister, Daradi. Come, come, sit! We were about to have lunch - have you the time?”

“Of course, Temarid,” Ranaman told him cheerily. He sat Daradi right next to the man, then sat on her other side, one hand still on her elbow. “Sun’s blessings, of course.”

“Of course, and to you both, as well. How are you today, my lady?”

“Well, thank you, my lord,” she murmured, staring down at her lap and clasping her hands together tightly.

“Mmm … wine?”

“N-” Ranaman squeezed her elbow, and she cleared her throat. “Of course, thank you.”

She was given a plate of food and a glass of pomegranate wine as the two men talked, and tried to drink as little of it as possible. Temarid asked her questions once in a while, far more interested than the other men had been. He didn’t ask her age. She tensed and bit the inside of her lip when he gently stroked her arm, and buried a whine in her napkin when he rested his hand on her knee. He started stroking it, too, after a bit, and she bit her lip almost hard enough to make it bleed.

“I like her,” the man said after a while. “I think that getting to know her better would lower your debt a bit - at least a hundred shards. Possibly more.”

“That would be excellent, my lord,” Ranaman told him warmly. Temarid took her hand to help her stand, and didn’t let it go. “You be nice to my friend, sister.”

She just nodded, trying not to cry as Temarid led her upstairs and into a bedchamber. She didn’t move when he let her go, keeping her gaze glued to the floor and wondering how much this was going to hurt. She hoped it wouldn’t be much, and that she wouldn’t cry too much. If he told Ranaman that she had cried, her brother would be angry. She jumped when Teramid put his hands on her shoulders, rubbing them, his breath hot on the back of her neck.

“Relax,” he murmured. She could feel something firm pressing against her rear, and tensed even more when she realized what it was. “This won’t hurt - I will make sure of it. Would you like me to make you feel nice?”

“If it pleases my lord,” she managed to get out. He had moved his hands to her arms, stroking them up and down, kissing the side of her neck gently.

When she hadn’t responded after a few moments, he made a small, questioning noise and turned her, holding her against him with a hand at the small of her back. He tilted her chin up and frowned. She swallowed sharply. He was going to tell Ranaman, and Ranaman was going to hurt her.

“You … don’t want this, do you?” She wasn’t meeting his gaze as she shrugged, and he kept holding her chin, but dropped his other hand and stepped back, lips thinning. Ranaman was going to kill her. “Your brother said that you wanted this - that you were eager for it, and just needed … convincing.” Daradi let out a short whine of distress. That was why the man had been so welcoming. “He was lying, wasn’t he? How old are you? He said you were sixteen, but now I doubt that.”

“Thirteen, my lord,” she whispered.

“That son of a ---” He bit back the curse and let her fully go. “And I suppose he was lying about being related to Eloquent Tatavid?”

“No, my lord.”

“Oh? Surprising. Well, come along, then.” He held the door open for her and gestured, then walked behind her as they went back to the living area. Ranaman looked up with a frown, then narrowed his eyes at Daradi. “I don’t take unwilling women, Ranaman,” Temarid said conversationally. “Much less ones barely of the age to be interested in sex. Oh, Lady Daradi _is_ a delight, don’t get me wrong - but she is _not_ sixteen and she is _not_ merely wanting encouragement to lay with a man, and I _do not_ appreciate being lied to. I am adding three hundred shards to what you owe me for this, and if you harm your sister - and I _will_ find out about it - you will pay with more than money. Are we clear?”

“Of course, my lord,” her brother growled.

“Excellent. My lady,” Teramid said as he bowed to her, “do come to me if he harms you. Sun’s blessings on you both.”

“Sun’s blessings.” Daradi murmured it with a curtsy and Ranaman bit it out, then they were out the door and he was visibly twitching with the urge to hit her. “We’re going home,” he told her.

Daradi’s eyes widened and she looked toward the Temple, then back at him. “But you said ---”

He whirled on her, face red with rage, and held one shaking finger up to her face. _“And you were useless to me today, you whore._ We are _not_ going to the Temple, and I _am_ locking you in your room when we get home.”

She nodded, looking down and trying not to cry, but also confused as to how she could be a whore when she had never had sex. The accusation stung, at any rate, and she glanced mournfully toward the Temple as they passed the road leading to it. She should have known that he wasn’t actually going to take her, especially after so many men had turned him - turned _her_ \- down.

Then she saw their parents, and jerked out of her brother’s light grasp to run to them.

“Papa! Mama!” They turned and her father swept her up in a tight hug, burying his face in the crook of her neck. Her mother’s eyes were red and she had clearly been crying, and Daradi’s heart clenched. “Wh, what’s wrong?”

“I’m glad you two are here,” her father told them as Ranaman ambled up. “Neurhen was arrested last night.”

Daradi’s blood ran cold and she looked between her parents frantically. “What?!”

“Come. Pana and Zia need us right now.”

She followed him, clutching her mother’s hand. “Papa, what happened? Why was he arrested?”

“A noble was murdered,” he said shortly, “and Neurhen was blamed. He was the last person to be seen with the man, and they had been arguing. He swears his is innocent, and said there is an Oseram who looks much like him who also had reason to be angry with the man, but until they find him …”

“Lord Neurhen wouldn’t hurt anyone!” Daradi cried. “Not unless he was defending Lady Pana or Zia!”

 _“We_ know that. Convincing the Sun-Priests, however … _That_ will be the difficult part. What are you two doing in town?”

“We were going to the Temple,” Ranaman said. “And I bought Daradi a new dress. Isn’t she lovely?”

“Oh.” Their father sounded a bit surprised. “Well, it saves us having to send someone to fetch you.”

She wanted to say that he was lying, wanted to tell her parents what he had tried to do, but she couldn’t - not with the news about Zia’s father. As soon as they were at Zia’s home and in the door, the girl was flinging herself at Daradi, clinging to her and wailing as she bawled.

“Daradi! Th, they took him! They took Papa! The soldiers took him!” Daradi held her tightly as her mother hugged Lady Pana, stroking her hair. “Papa didn’t hurt anyone!” her friend insisted. “He would never! They’re going to kill him, Daradi! They’re going to sacrifice him!”

“No, no,” Daradi whispered. “They won’t do that.” They probably would. She squeezed Zia tightly. “They will find the man who did it, I promise.”

Zia collapsed as she gasped for breath, and had to be carried to the majlis couch in the living area. She didn’t let Daradi go, so the older girl lay down with her, holding her tightly. She appeared to have cried herself out after a while, but she kept moaning, a low, pitiful noise that tore Daradi’s heart up. The adults moved into Neurhen’s office to speak privately, and while Ranaman muttered about being bored and left, Zia started to nod off, but jerked awake with a frightened whimper each time.

“Shh,” Daradi murmured each time. “It will be alright, Zia. Don’t worry. It will be alright.”

They stayed over that night, her mother sleeping with Lady Pana and Daradi sleeping with Zia, her father staying up late into the night as Lord Neurhen’s business associates came over, asking question upon question upon question. Zia was still desolate in the morning, clutching one of her father’s shirts to her and sobbing into it as Daradi tried her best to comfort her.

“I will run away!” the girl declared at one point, eyes bloodshot. “I will run away and get him back! I’m small - they won’t even notice me!”

“No, Zia,” Daradi begged her, holding her tight as she tried to get out of bed, but unable to get a good grasp as she wriggled. Zia ran to her window and opened it, looking down to judge the distance. “Don’t! They _will_ find you, or they will come here looking for you, and take you and your mother, as well.” She was ignored as her friend started tying spare bedding together, her face the picture of determination. Daradi got up and grabbed her shoulders. “Please, Zia, no!”

“I have to save him!” the girl screamed, tears once again filling her eyes. “They’re going to kill him! He never hurt _anyone!”_

“You don’t know that!” Daradi yelled back. “But they will for _sure_ if you try to get him back!”

Zia started wailing again, collapsing in a heap and sobbing, beating her hands against the floor. Her mother burst in and nearly tackled her in her haste to get to her daughter, holding her tightly and murmuring reassurances in Zia’s ear that her face said she didn’t believe. Daradi started crying, too, and held tightly to her father when he hugged her.

“Shh,” he murmured. “I will speak with a magistrate today, to see what can be done.” His face was haggard and his eyes were bloodshot - he had clearly gotten little to no sleep the night before. “Sun willing, things will work out. Daradi, I need you to stay here for a while, to comfort Zia. Can you do that for me?”

“Of course,” she said firmly. “Zia needs me.”

She got a kiss on the forehead. “Yes, she does. She most certainly does. I have to go, my love. I will be back later tonight.”

“Please be careful,” Daradi begged him. “Please be careful. I love you, Papa.”

He smiled and kissed her forehead again. “I will, my sunbeam. I promise. I love you, as well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow i hope something really bad happens to ranaman


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Daradi/Zia bonding.

“Zia is moving?” Daradi looked up from her studies with a frown. “Why?”

“Because without Neurhen’s income,” her father told her, “they cannot afford their home.”

“But I can go visit her, right?”

Girtaral sighed. “I am not sure.”

Daradi’s heart twisted and tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “But … but why not?”

“Neurhen is alive, child. It is best to question neither miracles nor their fallout.” He hugged her tightly. “Shall we go to the Temple after getting rent, tomorrow?”

She smiled as she hugged him back. “Yes, Papa. Thank you.”

He kissed her forehead. “Anything for you, my little sun.”

***

It was always a delight to be out without her brother. Her father asked her questions about her studies as they walked, and they stopped for a bit of food in the village and to watch the Great Elevators being constructed.

“I wish they had been built years ago,” she sighed as she tilted her head up far enough that she got a bit dizzy. “The lifts are good for food, but it would have saved _so_ much walking.”

“Yes, well, it is what it is. Come along. What is the best way to determine rent for a new tenant?”

She liked it when he let her study different things. She had studied art and poetry, and knew how to sing and dance and read, of course, like any proper lady, but he had insisted that she learn about business and continue learning math past the basics that ladies were normally taught - one needn’t know about math or running a business when one had a husband to care for one, after all. She rather liked it.

_“Rent, please!”_ she called out as they pushed the doors of the Forge and Hammer open. She couldn’t bellow like her father, but a rowdy cheer still went up and then a man picked her up and put her on his shoulder as she laughed. He carried her around to get her monthly rent while her father spoke with Borund and Elgana - they had both started protesting a few years previously, saying that she was now too old for the inn’s patrons to give money to, but had been cheerfully overridden by the regulars.

“And _our_ rent, too, little cog!” Borund told her with a grin when she had been set, giggling, on the bar. He handed her two shards as her father just shook his head with a smile.

“I’m not _little_ anymore,” she laughed. Borund just raised an eyebrow and raised his hand, moving it from the top of his head and clear over hers with a few inches to spare, even though she was sitting on the high bar. She giggled again. “Oh, fine.”

“We would stay,” her father said as he gestured her down, “but I promised my little sunbeam that we would pray in the Temple today.”

They were shooed out as Elgana laughed. “Go, go! We’ll see you next month.”

“Goodbye!” Daradi called as she walked out the door, waving. She got cheery goodbyes back, and stayed close to her father as they walked. The day was warm and the midday sun was bright, the only clouds tiny dots of fluff here and there in the rich blue sky, and normally she would have skipped ahead and then circled back, but since Zia’s father had been arrested, city guards and soldiers made her uneasy.

_“Daradi!”_ She turned at the sound of Zia’s voice, face lighting up as she, too, ran to her friend, sweeping her up and around in a tight hug. “Are you doing prayers at the Temple?! Mama is here, too! Mama!” she called, turning without letting Daradi go. “Mama! Daradi is here! I’m praying with her!”

Lady Pana looked over and nodded, then turned back to Sun-Priest Tonireth, adjusting his robes. Zia squealed with delight and covered Daradi’s face with kisses, ignoring the tears that were running down her face. Her voice dipped up and down as she babbled. It wasn’t the rise and fall of puberty - she was a few years out from _that._ No, she was consciously trying to make her naturally-husky contralto higher.

“I love you, too,” Daradi laughed, kissing her friend back. “I miss you, too! Why are you changing your voice?”

The girl’s eyes widened as they joined a small group of women off to the side. “Oh! You noticed? Do you like it? Sun-Priest Tonireth says it isn’t ladylike at all, that higher voices are better.” She shrugged. “Mama says that I’m to do as he says, like he was Papa ---” and a pang of aching despair crossed her pretty face, “--- and … and …” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, does it sound good? Does it sound natural? Sun-Priest Tonireth said I won’t get a good husband if my voice isn’t higher. Rifue, move. Daradi is sitting with me, today.” She shoved the other girl away, and then practically sat in Daradi’s lap when High Priest Lucent Bahavis started delivering the post-prayer sermon.

“Ew,” Rifue muttered. “Sun-Priest Ekav is _looking_ at us.”

The group all huddled closer together, hunching their shoulders and trying to make themselves smaller targets. Zia hissed softly when Daradi looked around in confusion.

“Don’t! He’ll come over! He’s gross.”

“He always _touches_ us,” Rifue added, shuddering and rubber her arms.

“He gets too close,” another girl agreed. “Stay away from him.”

“But he’s a sun-priest.”

She got rolled eyes and sighs, and then a full-on list of which priests to avoid and why. It was startlingly long, and Daradi’s eyes got wider and wider and her jaw dropped lower and lower. She had had no idea that so many sun-priests - holy men - used their power to take advantage of women.

“Are … are there _any_ we can trust?” she finally asked, when she could finally speak through her shock.

“Oh, yes!” Rifue was happy to tell her. She pointed to a man off to the side, his deep brown skin barely visible under his robes. “That’s Mournful Namman. If you need anything, ask him. Any priest he tells you to talk with is alright, if he doesn’t tell you to have your father or brother there with you.”

“Why is he called Mournful?”

The other girl sighed and looked around before leaning in and lowering her voice. “You mustn’t tell _anyone,_ alright?” Daradi nodded. “Good. His brother was a priest before him, and he protested the sacrifices. Mournful Namman joined … after. He wears his brother’s robes to honor him.”

“Oh, by the Sun …” Daradi’s heart constricted as she looked over at the priest again. He looked over and caught her eye, nodding and half-bowing with a smile. Her face turned red as she whipped back around.

Zia giggled. “He’s so nice. Mournful Namman!” she called, raising her hand and waving even as everyone tried to shush her. “What?”

Daradi kept her head lowered as he walked up to them. “Lady Iasia - my ladies. Sun’s blessings on you.”

“And you,” they all murmured.

Zia was the only one to not lower her head. She beamed up at him as she held Daradi’s arm tightly. “This is my friend Daradi! Remember? She lives under the Spire!”

His smile widened as he turned to Daradi and gave her a low bow, making her blush and giggle at the honor. “My lady. I have heard _so_ much about you. It is a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“I love Daradi,” Zia put in happily. “She’s my match!”

He laughed, but it wasn’t unkind - he was apparently used to her friend’s chatter. “And a good match it looks like. Did you ladies have any questions?”

“No,” Zia said. “I just wanted you to meet Daradi.”

“In that case, I should be going ---”

“Oh, wait!” He hadn’t even bothered turning away, and shared a smile with Daradi. Zia bounced a little as she got to her knees and gestured like she was opening a book and looking through it. Her ‘memory home’ was odd, and she had never fully explained it. “Ah, in Judicious Hivarat’s _Essays on the Morality of Justice,_ he mentions that …”

Mournful Namman was also apparently used to Zia going on about subjects and writings that no ten-year-old had any business knowing, because he just smiled and nodded once in a while as she took a long, rambling route to asking her question. Daradi supposed she was used to having to prove she did, in fact, know what she was talking about to most people - but summarizing had never been her strong suit, regardless.

She wasn’t familiar with the legal subjects her friend and the priest were discussing, but she wasn’t keen to go home, either, because even with her parents there, Rannaman still found ways to torment her. Besides, she had grown to enjoy the city, even if she preferred the estate. So she sat and listened to Zia jump from topic to topic and question to question, not bothering to ask if the priest had anything he needed to be doing, until it was time for evening prayers. They managed to get her to be quiet through them, and Lady Pana and Daradi’s father appeared as soon as they were done.

“Can’t Daradi come over?” Zia whined. “Can’t I stay with her?”

Pana’s lips thinned, and she looked to the side as she shook her head. “Come, child. We have to go.”

“I’m sure it’s fine if Zia comes over,” Daradi said, hugging Zia tightly as she started crying. “Isn’t it, Papa?”

“We need to go,” Pana interrupted. She sounded … tired. Almost meek. “Sun-Priest Tonireth is waiting for us.”

“We’ll be back soon, darling,” Daradi told her friend, taking her cheeks in both hands and kissing her forehead. “Soon. I promise. You have to behave, alright?”

“I don’t want you to go,” Zia whimpered, holding Daradi’s wrists as tears fell from her beautiful eyes. “I want to come with you. I don’t like it at Sun-Priest Tonireth’s. His wife is mean to us.”

_“Zia,”_ her mother whispered harshly, taking her arm. “Do _not_ speak like that about Lady Hergisa. _Ever.”_

“But _Mama,_ it’s _true.”_

“Be quiet, child, and come.”

Daradi kissed her forehead again, trying not to cry, herself. “We’ll see each other again see, love, I promise.”

“I shall run away,” Zia declared petulantly as she was led off. “I shall run away, and live with Daradi forever. You’ll be sorry when I’m gone.”

Her mother sighed, holding her tightly as they joined Sun-Priest Tonireth. He looked Zia up and down and said something that had her straightening and rubbing at her face even as she kept her head lowered, nodding. He turned and they followed, and Zia took one last look at Daradi before they left the Temple.

“Papa,” Daradi said as she turned to her father, who was watching them with a frown, “why can’t Zia stay with us for a while?”

“Her mother said no.”

“But if Sun-Priest ---”

“Has also probably said no, if Pana won’t even consider it.”

“But _why?”_

“That is not for us to know. Come on.” He looked at the sky. “We’re later than I had hoped.”

He meant that they would be walking to the small apartments they stayed in in the dark, making them easier targets for soldiers and other unsavory types. Daradi kept her head lowered as they walked - quickly, but without seeming like they were rushing - through the city. A few men turned their heads to watch them - to watch _her_ \- pass, but with her father there, no one said anything aside from a few murmurs. Daradi hated it. She flung herself on her cot once they were safe, burying her face in the ornate pillows.

“I wish I were a man,” she mumbled.

Her father sighed and came over to rub her back. “It would certainly make your life easier, child. Are you hungry?”

“What if Zia and I went to live with the Nora?” she asked as she sat up

That had him laughing as they sat to eat a brief dinner. “I, ah … I would miss you dearly, as would your mother, if you did. And Pana would miss Zia. And do you really think that child could survive amongst the Nora?”

“She would learn.”

“Well, the Raids would have to end before that could happen.”

“We could be refugees.”

He raised both his fork and eyebrow at her. “Shush with that kind of talk, now. We are now, always have been, and always _will_ be, loyal subjects of His Radiance. Do you understand?”

Daradi sighed and nodded, and sat on her cot once dinner was done, taking off her jewelry as he bathed. There was the rustle of him disrobing, then the was the sound of him getting in bed, and then she herself got up. His eyes were closed as she disrobed, bathed, and then slid her nightgown on, then got back in bed after wiping her makeup off. “The Nora like women better.”

“But not the Carja.” She groaned. “Try to rest, Daradi. Dawn will come soon enough.”

“I don’t care about the dawn,” she muttered, but care about the dawn she did, when her father woke her before it and urged her to dress, then walked her back to the temple.

She looked, but Zia wasn’t there. It made her heart clench. Her friend was _so_ alone with the sun-priest. She was incredibly social by nature, and it broke Daradi’s heart that she was essentially trapped in that house.

“I should just go petition the princes to make Sun-Priest Tonireth let Zia stay with us,” she grumped as they left the city. Her father laughed. “Prince Avad, at least, might be sympathetic.”

“The princes rarely leave the palace. I doubt you would be allowed in for tea and a chat.”

“I could try,” she said sarcastically.

He laughed again, but it was gentle, rather than mocking. “Zia will be fine. Neurhen will be back soon enough, and then they will be reunited and her fears will be eased. He will have three years’ of pampering to make up for, at any rate.”

“It isn’t _fair,_ Papa.”

“The fact that he was merely sent to Sunstone Rock, rather than sacrificed, is fair enough,” he said testily. “Please, Daradi, be silent. I know you’re worried, but this won’t help.”

She sighed, and barely said anything at all the rest of the way home. Her mother was waiting for them, and she ran up to squeeze her tightly and get a tight hug in return.

“I saw Zia and Pana, Mama,” she said.

“Oh? How are they?” her mother asked as they went inside, where dinner was being laid out.

“Horrible. Zia _hates_ it there. I don’t think the sun-priest lets her go out much. I don’t see why not. She doesn’t get into _much_ trouble.”

“But enough to shame a sun-priest, I would assume,” her mother said kindly, reaching out to squeeze her hand. Ranaman was conspicuously absent. “It will be fine. Neurhen will be back soon enough.”

“That’s what Papa said,” she muttered into her food.

“Your father is a wise man.”

“Do you all hear that?” said wise man asked brightly, as the servants laughed quietly. “I want you all to note that Malaka has admitted that I am a wise man.” That got more laughter, and her mother gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Well. Sometimes.”

“I was wise enough to get _you_ to marry me,” he told with a grin. “And to give me such a beautiful, intelligent sunbeam as Daradi.”

“She gets it all from my side of the family, I am sure,” was the dry response as she waved him off.

“I am certain that I contributed at _least_ to her good looks.”

“As you like, darling.”

Daradi giggled as they needled each other lovingly, then ushered herself to bed when the flirting became harder and harder to keep appropriate for her being there. There was soft laughter as she excused herself and trotted upstairs. She was bathed and dressed for bed, then giggled with embarrassment and held her pillow over her head when she heard her parents go to bed. She hoped that her future husband would be as loving and kind. She was sure her father would turn down any man he felt wouldn’t be. And she would of course take his council if she happened to find a man she fancied before he found a possible partner.

Or maybe she wouldn’t marry. Ranaman was there to continue their family line - as if a family line would ever pass through the mother - and Zia was _very_ insistent that they were, and always would be, a matched pair. She might match with Zia, and with the knowledge of business her father was imparting on her, it might actually work for them. Oh, there would be talk, of course, and some scandal, especially if neither of them married for appearances, but she felt that she could handle that. Zia certainly wouldn’t care. Zia hardly cared about _anything,_ unless she did. Then she _strongly_ cared.

Poor Zia. Poor, poor Zia. Daradi turned over and hugged her other pillow tightly to her chest. She didn’t want to encourage her friend’s tendency toward delinquency when she didn’t get her way, and wasn’t prone to breaking the rules in any case, but perhaps she should quietly let Zia know the rent schedule, so her friend could sneak out and visit. If she got her back safely before dawn … Borund and Elgana might help. That or they would drag them both to her father, who would be _quite_ irate, and possibly ban them from seeing each other until at _least_ the time that Neurhen was freed.

Well, she would ask them, at any rate. Zia shouldn’t be kept caged up like a pet bird - she needed to be able to fly wild. Daradi laughed a little at that thought, then turned to her other side, yawned, and was finally able to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor avad's sitting in the palace like DEAR SUN-GOD SOMEONE PLEASE COME PETITION ME OR SOMETHING SO I CAN LEAVE THIS HELLHOLE


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh no ranaman is a jerk and zia is precious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for non-descriptive talk of rape, and ranaman once again trying to sell of daradi's virginity, but there's absolutely nothing graphic

As it turned out, Daradi didn’t _have_ to ask Borund and Elgana for help in seeing Zia - the next time she and her father were in town, the girl showed up at their little apartment, unannounced, and cheerfully flounced in and then flopped onto Daradi’s bed, demanding hugs and cuddles and kisses, asking if there was dessert. Daradi’s father just heaved a sigh and left to buy something for the two girls, glowering the whole night through, and once Zia had apparently realized she’d been gone long enough and that she was going to be missed soon, walked the girl back home - to her temporary home, at least.

It followed the same pattern over the course of the next three years. Zia was incorrigible in her persistence, and even when Daradi stayed at her townhouse or even the Forge and Hammer, would dutifully show up and let herself in as if it were the most natural thing in the world. When Daradi saw her at the Temple, she always begged her mother to be allowed to stay with Daradi, and was always denied - but Daradi started to suspect that Lady Pana knew full well what her daughter was up to, and was possibly facilitating it. Zia never seemed to be bothered by the possibility of getting in trouble, at least. Not that Zia _ever_ worried about the possibility of getting in trouble. Even when she missed a couple of months, then showed up to proudly declare that she had beat a boy up for insulting her parents and had broken his arm and been tossed in a fountain by the city guard, then had been locked away at Sun-Priest Thenoran’s for it, she was entirely unrepentant.

She mentioned her mother’s pregnancy and the birth of her younger brother during her father’s third year of imprisonment in passing, and Daradi didn’t have time to think anything of it. She had to study, run from Ranaman, and avoid the soldiers, city guards, and kestrels that swooped through Meridian and sometimes even their estate. She couldn’t always be in Meridian, and Zia hated it, especially when her lovely dark reddish-brown skin started developing odd white patches that eventually spread across her entire body in random sizes and patterns. Daradi tried to comfort her, but Sun-Priest Tonireth and his wife apparently told her regularly that she was cursed.

It didn’t help that the Derangement kept getting worse, and Zia got it in her head that she had somehow caused all or part of it, and that was why she was being cursed with her splotches.

Daradi suspected that the sun-priest and his wife had a role in _that,_ as well.

Still, her general mood improved after her father returned from prison, her cheerfulness and carefree attitude returning. Daradi’s father, in fact, let them move into the family townhouse until they could get back on their feet, and then gave Lord Neurhen a sizeable loan with which to purchase their own new home - a loan that he privately confessed to Daradi that he had absolutely no intention of taking repayment for.

***

“Daradi, come here.”

She got up and walked to her father’s office, where her mother and Elgana and Borund also sat. Her face lit up and she ran over to give them hugs.

“Elgana! Borund! What are you doing here?”

They didn’t look happy, even as they hugged her back. Her father didn’t look happy, either, and sighed. He held his hand out for her and she took it, wondering what had happened.

“Daradi, Borund and Elgana will be staying with us for the time being. If anyone asks, they are our slaves, and you will refer to them as such when we have visitors - especially Sun-Priests and soldiers. Do you understand?”

She frowned and pulled back as she shook her head. “Why? They’re our friends, not our slaves.”

“I understand that, Daradi, but …”

“Jiran’s started sacrificing Oseram,” Elgana told her bluntly. Daradi’s heart skipped a beat in fear. “We’re safer here, as slaves.”

She bit the word out, and Daradi flinched. Her family had never owned slaves. Her father sometimes purchased them, but he always set them free and offered them work right after. She nodded.

“I … alright. Ah … What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing, for now,” her father told her. “Just call them slaves from now on, even though they’re our friends.”

He hesitated, and her mother sighed. “Girtaral, you need to tell her.”

“I …” The corners of his eyes pinched, but he lowered his head and sighed. “Come here, child.” She went to him again, and he took her hands and looked up at her as he kissed them. “Daradi … You are what the poets call _achingly beautiful._ You are intelligent, and vivacious, and men are starting to notice that.”

Yes, men like Ranaman’s nasty friends, even more so than three years previously - but Temarid’s threat if her safety and chastity were compromised had held them all at bay thus far. She screwed her face up, and her father sighed again, reluctantly going on as he picked up a satchel and pressed it into her hands. “I …”

“Borund will go with you when you go out, from now on,” her mother finally said as she looked at the small pouch curiously.

“Why? I’ve been fine on my own - especially with the Great Elevators finished.”

“Because men are starting to take an interest in you, and I want to prevent their advances as much as possible. His presence should keep most of them at bay, but …”

Her heart clenched and she went a little cold. “Father, you’re frightening me,” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”

He held her hands to his forehead and his shoulders dropped. “There are … some men who will … not take no for an answer,” he murmured. Daradi’s eyes widened. “Borund can deal with average men, but not soldiers or Sun-Priests. They will do as they please, and if you catch their fancy …” He sighed again and looked up at her, tears glistening in his eyes. “If any of them ever want you, Daradi, and refuse to respect your wishes … Please, my love, value your safety and your life over your chastity.”

Daradi’s breath caught and she whimpered a little, tears filling her own eyes as she shook her head. “Papa, no. That won’t happen. Please …”

He shook his head. “I cannot guarantee that it won’t, my love. I wish to the Sun that I could. These herbs,” and he squeezed her hands and the bag she held, “will bring about your monthly blood early, and ensure you won’t get pregnant, should you … have to lay with … with anyone. Brew them as soon after as you can. You will feel the normal cramps, but that is far preferable to a pregnancy.”

“Papa, I’m only sixteen,” she whispered. “No one wants me.”

He sighed and reached up to brush a bit of hair behind her shoulder. “Would that that were true, my daughter. Come to your mother and I if that unfortunate event ever happens - we will never begrudge you doing what you need to do in order to keep yourself safe. Share these with your friends, as well, should they need them - Zia, especially. Her rebelliousness should be tempered now that Neurhen is returned, but she is incredibly interested in carnal acts and should be protected from her own bad judgement. If you ever need more, you have but to ask; we won’t question you on it. Please, Daradi, promise me that you will do this for us.”

She looked between her parents and the two Oseram, then nodded as she shook and sniffled. She _had_ noticed more and more men noticing her, but she had never once thought that any of them might force themselves on her - especially not Sun-Priests. They were supposed to be the most honorable of men. She wasn’t averse to the thought of laying with a man, and quiet enjoyed laying with her girlfriends or touching herself, but the thought of a complete stranger ignoring her when she told him no, putting his hands on her, rutting on top of her … It made her blood run cold.

“I promise, Papa,” she whispered. She tucked the herbs into her thick belt. “I, uhm … I don’t think I want to go into the city for a while.”

“We don’t want to tell you not to go,” her mother put in. “We just want you to take every precaution. That is why Borund will escort you when you do. His presence may hopefully also deter a soldier or priest. Do you know priests that you can trust?”

“A … a few.”

“Good. Go to them if you need help. We want you to have your freedom, Daradi, but we also want you to be safe.”

“I … Of course. I was supposed to go visit Zia tomorrow.”

“And you can still do that,” her father assured her. “I will send you with a servant, as well. I have no idea where Ranaman is, unfortunately.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, Father. Stop sending him with me. He is absolutely _awful,_ and you know it.”

“Well, yes, but sometimes he is the only man to escort you.”

“I would rather jump in the lake,” she muttered. Despite Temarid’s threats, he still liked to constantly threaten to barter her chastity to pay for whatever debt he’d accrued, and she was afraid of the time that he decided Temarid was no longer interested in protecting her.

“Please don’t.” Her father kissed her hands again. “You may go.”

Daradi hurried up to her room and put the herbs in her vanity drawer, then huddled on her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest and arms wrapped tightly around them. She wanted to go see Zia and little Pep, but her father’s words had frightened her. She always went with a male servant or Ranaman, anyway, but to need an actual bodyguard … Not to mention having to shelter Elgana and Borund to keep them safe as both the Derangement and the sacrifices got worse. The sacrifices were supposed to appease the Sun-God, but she didn’t think they were helping, and they horrified her. She always stayed away from the city whenever one was scheduled, but always fancied that she could hear the roars of the machines and the screams of the sacrifices even though they were a two-hour walk from Meridian.

She went to bed early that night, hardly able to touch her dinner, and only left the house the next day with Borund and a servant with great reluctance. She was frightened in a way that she had never been frightened before, but Zia was expecting her and she honestly wouldn’t put it past the thirteen-year-old to sneak out and make the trek to Daradi’s estate all by herself. Daradi’s willfulness was a quiet, subdued thing, but Zia’s was out there for the entire world to see.

The trip was uneventful, though Daradi only relaxed once she was inside and had Zia squealing over her arrival and clinging to her. She hugged her friend and tried to give her an air kiss, but Zia turned her head at the last moment and kissed her fully on the lips with an unrepentant giggle.

Daradi sighed. “Zia …”

“I love you, Daradi!” she exclaimed for the fifth time, swinging their hands together. “Be my match!”

Daradi laughed. “Well, maybe when you’re older.”

 _“Eeeee!_ Papa! Papa! Daradi said she would be my match!”

That got a tired laugh as Lord Neurhen - far too gaunt and haunted after his three-year stint at Sunstone Rock - came up and hugged her tightly. “And how will you have children?”

“We will find two men who are matched, and they will give us children.”

“Indeed. Lady Daradi.” He took her hand and kissed it, and she curtsied.

“Lord Neurhen. Are you … well?”

He nodded. “Far more so now that I am home.” He hugged Zia again tightly, and she clung to him. “Yourself?”

“I’m well, thank you.”

“Neurhen? Is that Daradi?”

He turned to the stairs as Lady Pana came down them, Pep at her breast. He held her tightly once she got to them.

“Daradi, darling. How are you?”

Daradi curtsied again. “Well, Lady Pana, thank you. And yourself?”

“Far better than before. Neurhen, come sit. I will have the servants bring you food.”

“Thank you, my love.”

They all sat in the dining area and were served a light lunch, with Pana encouraging her husband to keep eating. Daradi held Pep and made faces at him as Zia chattered on about something she was building, some device that could walk by itself. Lord Neurhen watched her with a smile, and eventually broke down into quiet tears. Zia and Lady Pana immediately scooted to either side of him and held him as Daradi kept her head lowered.

“My apologies,” he croaked after a while.

“It’s alright,” she replied. “I understand.” If her own father had been falsely accused and nearly killed, then sent away for three years …

He coughed. “Well. Shall we go out, later?”

“No!” Zia and Lady Pana both said at the same time, fear on their faces.

Lord Neurhen smiled and nodded. “Very well. Zia, show us your machine after we’re done eating, and then we could play some games.”

“Yes!”

Her little machine did, indeed, walk on its own once wound up, and they all complimented it. Zia beamed with pride. They played a board game and dice after that, and Borund was kind enough to play them a song during dinner. He didn’t say anything, but ate with them, and Lord Neurhen and Lady Pana both thanked him. Perhaps they knew that he and Elgana had to pretend to be slaves.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Zia whispered later, as they lay in her bed together. “I miss you so much.”

“I miss you, too,” Daradi whispered back. They were laying on their sides, facing each other, heads cushioned on their arms and free hands clasped together. “I’m glad your father is back.”

“So am I. He looks awful - he’s far too thin. Mama wakes him up at night to eat more. Sometimes I hear him crying. Do you think the soldiers will come back for him?”

It was asked in a tiny, shaking voice, and Daradi sighed before raising her hand and kissing it.

“No,” she whispered with confidence she didn’t really feel. The king’s men could take anyone, at any time, for any reason. “He served his time. They will leave him alone.”

“Is Borund your slave?”

She wanted to say no, to tell Zia what was going on, but Zia talked to anyone who would listen, with no regard as to whether or not she _should._ She nodded.

“For now, yes. Father will free him soon enough. He just doesn’t want anyone to take him or Elgana - can you imagine the fuss they would both put up?”

“He’s very strong,” Zia observed, then giggled.

Daradi rolled her eyes. “And old enough to be your father, Zia. Really, have some decorum.”

“Boo,” her friend pouted. “All I said was that he’s very strong. You’re boo, Daradi.”

“Yes, I practice.”

That brought more giggles. “Are you going to get married, soon?”

“Zia, I’m sixteen.” Exasperation filled her voice. Zia only thought of three things - men and the marriage and marital acts that accompanied them, the law, and engineering new gadgets.

“So? I bet lots of men want to marry you.”

“And _if_ they do, Father tells them all no, and I don’t hear a word about it. Besides, I like helping Father with his work, and what man would accept that?”

“What if one of the princes asked for your hand?”

That had Daradi snorting with laughter. “Really? Prince Kadaman or Prince Avad? They’re both too old to consider me, even if it were possible.”

“Avad’s only twenty-one,” Zia pressed. “Kadaman is just twenty-five.”

“I don’t want a husband nearly a decade older than me!”

“Then marry Prince Avad.”

She was going to throttle her friend’s pretty neck. Daradi huffed.

“All I would be allowed to do is have children. I doubt either prince - much less Sun-King Jiran - would accept that I want to do anything else. And I don’t want children right now - not for a while.”

“But babies are cute.”

“Then _you_ marry one of them, and have all the babies you want.”

“I will.”

Daradi giggled in sudden horror. “Oh, by the Sun, both of my parents are twins, Zia. I may not have anything _but_ twins. Could you _imagine?”_

Her friend’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Name them all after me!” Daradi laughed. “Bia, and Lia, and Zian, and Iasiaf …”

She continued listing variations of her name as Daradi kept laughing, eventually covering her mouth to make sure they weren’t heard. Despite all her moaning that she was quite homely and cursed because of her splotchy skin, her friend was incredibly vain and self-centered.

“Alright, alright,” she finally coughed, “I will named _one_ of them after you.”

“Yay!”

Zia leaned her head forward and nuzzled their noses together, which had Daradi laughing more. She placed a kiss on Daradi’s lips, which Daradi returned before stroking her cheek. She knew her friend wanted to lay with her, but she was still very young. Perhaps in a few more years.

“Go to sleep,” she murmured.

“But you have to leave tomorrow.”

“I know, but if we sleep _now,_ we’ll have more time to be together before I do. You don’t want to wake up just in time to have to say goodbye, do you?”

Zia sighed. “No.” Then she rolled over and scooted back until she was pressed against Daradi, pulling Daradi’s arm over her stomach. “Be my big spoon.”

“As if I have a choice. Goodnight, darling.”

“Goodnight, Daradi.”

***

Ranaman opened her door without warning, and Daradi jumped and glared at him. She was reading, sitting on the small couch that she’d pushed up against her window in order to get the best light.

“Would you knock once in a while?” she snapped as he sauntered in and started looking through her wardrobe. “Hey! What are you doing? I’ll tell Father!”

“Father and Mother went out,” he told her casually as he pulled a dress out and looked at it, then tossed it on her bed. “Change into that.”

Great. She was alone with her older brother, who made a steaming pile of dung look more and more pleasant as the years went by. She huffed and shook her head.

“No. Get out of my room.”

His smirk wasn’t pleasant in the slightest as he advanced on her. Daradi curled in on herself a bit and wondered if she could make it to the door before her grabbed her.

“Come on, change or I’ll make you. I have a friend over, and I want you to look nice for him. I’m your brother - do as I say.”

He had an awful point - as her elder brother, and the only related man around, he outranked her and she had to do what he wanted her to do. Still, she tried again.

“I’ll tell Temarid.”

“Temarid doesn’t remember who you are. Get up, or I’ll dress you myself.

She scowled and threw her book down before standing up. _“Fine._ Get out of my room.”

She hated when he did this. Rather than taking her into the city, he had started waiting until their parents would leave before he would invite a ‘friend’ over - a friend to whom he owed money - and then he would try to leverage her virginity as payment for his debts. He apparently thought that, if Temarid _did_ remember her and his threat to Ranaman, he wouldn’t find out if it happened at home. She had considered telling him she wasn’t a virgin, but then he would get mad - perhaps mad enough to beat her. She swore that this time she would tell her father exactly what was going on once he returned, regardless of Ranaman’s threats of violence against her.

She tromped down the stairs and glared at her brother and his much older associate, her shoulders squared and her hands on her hips.

“Well? Let the bidding start.”

Ranaman narrowed his eyes at her. “Daradi, is that any way for a lady to act? We have a guest, after all.”

She let out another groan and gave an exaggerated curtsy.

“My apologies, my lords,” she said with bitter sweetness. “Sir, would you care to sit down? What may I have the servants bring you for refreshments?”

He walked over to her and circled her, looking her up and down critically. She stood as still as possible, quivering with disgust and more than a little bit of fear. Ranaman had yet to be successful in trading her virginity, despite Temarid’s threats, but she always assumed the next attempt would yield the results he wanted before she could escape and tell the other man.

“Quite the willful thing,” the man commented, his voice raspy. She shuddered at the feel of his breath across her shoulder. “Though she _is_ as lovely as you said.”

“You may have to beat it out of her - just don’t leave obvious bruises.”

“I’m going to tell Father,” she spat.

“Do you want to die?” Ranaman spat back.

“It would be preferable to being raped. Is that what you want, _my lord?_ To rape me? Because that is the _only_ way you will go to bed with me - by force.”

“You can gag her,” was her brother’s suggestion. “I would say she’s worth five hundred shards, wouldn’t you?”

“Who is worth five hundred shards, and why?” Borund’s deep voice - even deeper as he growled his words - asked from the doorway.

Everyone jumped, and Daradi ran to him, obviously hiding behind him.

“This doesn’t concern you, _slave,”_ Ranaman snapped. “Get out of here.”

He got a short bow and turned. “As my lord commands. Lady Daradi, this way.”

“Daradi stays here.”

Borund looked over his shoulder at her brother and snorted. “My duties entail keeping Lady Daradi safe. She clearly feels unsafe here. Therefore, as per your lord father’s orders, she will come with me.”

Ranaman could do nothing but splutter after them as Borund took her arm and walked her outside. She broke down crying once they were out of sight and earshot.

“I’m, I’m, I’m s-s-sorry,” she blubbered. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, little cog, what for?” he asked as he hugged her.

“I just … he told me I had to … he was going to, going to …”

“Shh, I know,” he whispered. “I know. Will you tell your father when he gets back?”

She nodded. “I promise, this time. I can’t keep doing this.”

Borund nodded. “Nor should you have to. I know that your parents have important business in Meridian, but I sent a runner to fetch them back. They should be here in a few hours.”

“I hate him,” she whispered.

“He’s a very hateable fellow. I don’t blame you.”

“Will you get in trouble?”

Borund scoffed with a grin. “Me? Naw. Your father’s like to give me a medal for this. Elgana’s up in your room, by the way.” He winked at her surprised look. “Wouldn’t want any accidents to happen to it, eh?”

“Thank you,” Daradi whispered.

It took another two and a half hours for her parents to get back, her mother full of worry and her father’s face set with anger. Daradi and Borund were helping the other servants harvest the maize, laughing together. When she saw her parents, she dropped everything and ran up to hug them.

“Oh, thank the Sun you’re back,” she sighed, the tenseness in her shoulders dropping.

“What happened?” her father demanded. “What did Ranaman do?”

“Ah …” She gestured to the storage shed and Borund stood guard outside of it, and once in, wrung her hands and lowered her head. “I’m … I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I’m not hurt,” she hurried on at the looks on their faces. “I’m just … Ranaman gambles and gets into debt. A lot of it.” They nodded. They’d helped him out of a tight spot far too often. “Well, he … For the past few years, he’s taken to … to trying to settle his debts with my virginity.”

Both her parents nearly choked; they clearly hadn’t been expecting _that._

 _“What?”_ her father nearly yelled as his face turned red. “He’s been doing _what?”_

Daradi was trying not to cry again as she nodded. “I’m sorry. He just … he escorts me around the city and does it there, or he has them come here, and threatens me if I tell or don’t go along with him, and he’s my older brother, so I can’t tell him no, and … and he hasn’t been able to, yet, but he tried again today, and … and Borund stepped in, but … Please don’t be angry with me.”

Both her parents hugged her tightly.

“Oh, darling, we aren’t mad at you in the slightest,” her mother murmured. “Ranaman, despite our best efforts, has always been …”

“Terrible,” her father growled. “I am sorry to have to say it, but he is. And he won’t do this again.”

“What do you mean?” her mother asked.

“I _mean,_ he won’t do this again. Ever. I’m kicking him out. I don’t want any complaints. He has gone on for far too long.”

Her mother bit her lip to keep from speaking, then sighed and nodded. “I … I cannot disagree with you.”

“Good. You two stay in here and leave it to me. Borund,” he said as he left the shed, “gather the largest servants that are here and meet me at the front of the house.”

“Absolutely.” Borund’s voice was full of pleasure.

They sat as they waited for the inevitable fight - possibly brawl - to break out. Daradi sighed and looked up at the ceiling as her mother held her hand.

“I’m relieved,” she finally murmured. “I don’t want to ever see him again.”

“That is … perfectly understandable. He is my son, and I love him, but …” Her mother heaved her own sigh. “He is a curse, to be frank. Your father and I have tried and tried to be patient, to teach him to be a decent man, but he has always been like this. I don’t know what we did to be cursed with him, but _you_ are a blessing that _more_ than makes up for it.”

Daradi laughed a bit as tears filled her eyes. There was yelling from outside, and she squeezed her mother’s hand.

“He won’t hurt anyone, will he?”

“Not with five Oseram there,” she was assured. “And we will make sure that there are extra guards to ensure that he doesn’t come back.”

“I feel like I should feel sad, but I don’t.”

“Don’t worry yourself, child. Ranaman has tormented you since you were born. Yes, he is your elder brother, and as such traditionally commands your respect and obedience, but I believe the Sun-God will make an exception in this case.”

“Hopefully.”

It was another hour before her father and Borund came back, a bit sweaty, still upset, but unhurt. Daradi stood up quickly.

“Is he gone?”

“Yes,” he said, “and won’t be coming back. You have nothing to fear anymore.”

“But … What if he _does_ come back?”

“Then he will be dealt with.” Borund grinned widely at that. “He is fully away that he is no longer welcome here, or at the townhouse. I had the locks changed and guards set up as soon as the runner said he was the reason we needed to come back.” He touched Daradi’s cheek gently. “This was a long time in coming, my love. Today was simply the breaking point. You did nothing wrong.”

“I should have told you sooner.”

“True, but he intimidated you into keeping quiet. I don’t hold you at fault for that. Please, _please_ do not _ever_ be afraid to come to us when you’re in trouble. Our duty - _my_ duty - is to keep you safe, even if it costs me my life. I will abide by that duty.”

“Father, no!” Daradi clung to his arm and shook her head. “Don’t say that! You won’t have to die to keep me safe.”

His smile was warm as he kissed her cheek. “Eh, probably not, but I will do so gladly if ever needed. Now,” he said briskly, “I feel a celebration is in order. The kitchen is preparing a delicious meal for us, and we will have dancing, and music, and merry times.”

He made good on his word. The meal they had was of the quality and extravagance usually reserved for the solstices and equinoxes, and Daradi was persuaded to sing as some servants played a lively tune. She didn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun. Zia had been despondent while her father had been away, then the Derangement had started, then the sacrifices and raids …

Regardless, it wasn’t until dawn that they stopped. Everyone was relieved that Ranaman was finally gone - it was like a new day dawning, even if Daradi yawned all through their morning salutations. She slept easier than she had in a long time, though, despite her exhaustion. Over the next few weeks she felt like she was walking on air; there was no Ranaman to jump out at her, to pull her and yank her hair, to make lewd remarks about her body and how much men would pay for it, to badger their father into giving him money to pay off his debts, to harass the female servants. She did occasionally jump at shadows, but on the whole, it was a breath of fresh air, a much-needed ray of sunlight through the clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm trying not to make this a zia story
> 
> emphasis on 'trying'


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> daradi is a Working Woman(tm), thank you very much, zia is incredibly intelligent, and they fuck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i rearranged the posting order of the factions series to go in chronological order so i stop being confused as to what fic i'm posting when

Daradi was following her father very carefully, taking immaculate notes on everything that was going on. They’d developed a sort of shorthand version of the glyphs so that she could take notes faster, and only she and her father knew what each one meant. She kept quiet, and most of the men her father met with hardly paid her any attention because she was a woman. They had no idea that she was listening and writing everything down, no idea that her father had told her months ago that she was to take over his business when he passed. There were a few legal issues to take care of for that to happen, but he felt there was enough evidence of Ranaman’s complete and utter incompetence - as well as the rare example of a daughter being left the inheritance rather than the son - that it shouldn’t be an issue. And if there was, all the Sun-Priests would need to do was quiz her and her brother on even basic business practices, and they would rule in her favor.

“Fine, fine, a hundred shards a bushel,” the merchant sighed. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“Excellent! Thank you so much, my lord.” Her father beamed as they shook on it, then the merchant tilted his head at Daradi.

“Is … Is this your daughter?”

Girtaral nodded. “Yes, Daradi.”

“My lord,” she said with a curtsy.

He bowed and she let him kiss her hand. “Are you not married yet?”

She fought back the urge to roll her eyes, and her father laughed easily. “Oh, I couldn’t bear to part with her just yet. No man could treat her right, except maybe one of the princes.”

“Zia was on about that just yesterday,” Daradi sighed. “Why must I be royalty? I have no use for it.”

“No use for it?” the merchant laughed. “No use for it! No use for being a princess, perhaps even queen? No use for all the riches of the Sundom at your feet? Not to mention whichever prince you would marry? Girtaral, your daughter is daft.”

“No, just practical,” she said primly. “I doubt that I would be able to do even _half_ of what I want to do with my life if I were to marry one of the princes.”

“And what _do_ you want to do?” the merchant asked.

“Go into business, like my father,” was her immediate reply. “And open a college for women, as well. Everyone should have the chance to be educated, no matter what their station in life. Oh, a communal library would also be wonderful.”

Her father put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “As you can see, my daughter has plans that don’t currently include a husband.”

“I don’t mean to say that I won’t _ever_ get married,” she explained, “but I have no current need of a husband. Most men would insist I only stay home and have children, and that isn’t what I want right now.”

“Eh, I hear that Prince Avad has similar odd notions about women,” the merchant shrugged. “Marry _him,_ if you must marry at all.”

“Oh, yes,” she said dryly, “let me just go up to the palace to inform him of that right now, shall I?”

She got a laugh. “Girtaral, is she _always_ this impertinent?”

“Only when it’s warranted, Jeteran.” Her father was still grinning. “She’s but twenty-one. When she is ready to marry, she will tell me who he is, and after the most cursory of interviews and background checks, I will approve him - my Daradi is a very sensible woman —”

 _“Daradiiiii!”_ Zia screamed from down the street.

“— unlike some of her friends.”

“Shhh!” Daradi hissed as her friend ran up at full speed and threw her arms around her. “Zia, be quiet! Don’t attract attention!” She looked around to make sure they hadn’t caught the attention of any soldiers, and sighed with relief when she saw none.

“Oh, don’t be so boo!” Zia laughed. “You didn’t say you were in town!”

“Because I’m working,” Daradi told her patiently. “I was going to drop by later, if I got the chance.”

Zia sighed and rolled her eyes as the male escort her parents insisted accompany her everywhere - a servant today - caught up. “Oh, boo. Women shouldn’t work, you know that. No one will marry you if you do.”

“Well, then I won’t marry anyone who wants me to stay home, you silly girl. My lord —”

“No need for apologies,” he said with a grin as she turned to him. “If we’re finished, Girtaral, my ladies, I will let you be on your way.”

“Absolutely,” her father said. “Thank you for your time.” He turned to the two women once Jeteran had gone. “Zia, really. You know you need to show decorum when you’re out.” She pouted at him. “You can run wild as a Strider all day at home, but you could be in very real danger if you make too much of a fuss outside. Do you understand?”

She hung her head and toed the ground. “Yes, Lord Girtaral. My apologies.”

“Oh, you’re not sorry at all.” That got him an impish grin, and he took the parchment from Daradi. “Go, have fun, you two. I’ll stop by tomorrow to pick you up, Daradi.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“Come on!” Zia grabbed her hand and dragged her off, going on about a dress she wanted and a scroll on different interpretations of legal rulings that she was memorizing, but she was doing it quietly, at least.

She wasn’t unintelligent, Daradi mused. Zia was, in fact, _astoundingly_ intelligent when she put her mind to it. She just … lived up in the clouds, on the wings of Glinthawks. She’d always been that way - chattering about the most superficial things, then suddenly spouting off about complicated legal matters for a moment before returning to the shinies and trinkets and handsome men that usually occupied her mind. She had dreams of being a magistrate and changing the laws so people were presumed innocent until guilty and proper investigations were done, but also firmly believed that women should be under the care and control of their husbands or fathers.

Logically, Daradi knew that no woman would ever become a magistrate, even if it no longer required one to be a Sun-Priest - and the thought of women becoming Sun-Priests was such a blasphemous thought that she spent a full five minutes running through all the repentances she knew in order to hopefully stave off the Sun’s displeasure at the notion. But she wasn’t about to crush Zia’s dreams - they had been one of the few things she had clung to while her father was in prison. Nothing like that - not even her own college or public library dreams - would ever come to pass with Sun-King Jiran in power, and he didn’t seem keen on passing that power on to Prince Kadaman any time soon. She wasn’t even sure that Prince Kadaman would be receptive to any of those ideas. Prince Avad might be - Jeteran had been right that he had funny notions of women’s place in society.

Daradi didn’t find them funny. She rather liked what she had heard of them. But alas, Prince Avad was only the second-born, and barring a catastrophe, wouldn’t ever ascend the throne. Then again, perhaps he would be able to influence his brother into some sort of compromise. She had seen them both at festivals a few times, and while she would consider Prince Kadaman arrogant and cocky if he weren’t of the Radiant Line, he had also seemed to be occasionally tempered by Prince Avad’s level-headedness. Prince Avad had seemed aloof and borderline conceited to her at first, which was the general consensus amongst most of the nobility, but as she’d watched him closer, she had come to the conclusion that he was most likely just very shy, like he had seemed when she had been younger.

She didn’t know why a prince would be shy, and the thought both amused and saddened her. She wondered if he had many friends. Prince Kadaman seemed to enjoy haranguing him, so perhaps they weren’t that close.

Well, if he didn’t, she could always tell Zia, and then Zia would decide to be best friends with him. Her friend was like that; if she saw someone in distress, or trouble, or alone, she would go right up and try to help or befriend them. Her kindness, much like her airheadedness, knew no bounds. Daradi envied her that, as well as her carefree attitude. It helped, she supposed, that her father had started spoiling her to no end once he’d gotten back on his feet both physically and financially.

“Papa!” Zia called once they’d gotten to her townhome. “Mama! I’m back! And I found Daradi, too! She was here today and she didn’t tell me!”

“I said I was going to come over if I could,” Daradi told her with a smile.

“Boo.” Zia waved her off and then hugged her father tightly when he came out of his study. He hugged her back and kissed her forehead, then turned and kissed Daradi’s hand.

“Well, then, it was a good day all around. You’re staying the night, I presume.”

“Or I’ll cry!”

Daradi laughed and nodded. “Yes, my lord, of course. We don’t want Zia to cry.”

“Absolutely not. I never want her to cry again.”

Zia tugged at his arm. “May we have peach pies for dessert? Please? Since Daradi is an unexpected guest, and all?”

“Yes, of course. Were you just visiting, Daradi? Zia, go tell the girls that we have an extra guest.”

Zia ran off and Daradi shook her head. “No, Father and I were working. I don’t know if he told you, but I am to take over his business. Ranaman has been completely cut out of our family.”

“Come, sit.” He walked with her to the living area. “I didn’t know for sure that you were taking over, but we assumed it after we heard about Ranaman. Good riddance. He came sniffing around after that, you know.”

Daradi’s eyebrows raised. “Oh? I had no idea.”

“Oh, we ran him off right quick,” Neurhen laughed. “I made it very clear that if we saw or heard from him again, he would not like the consequences. At all. He made some vague threats, as usual, but the city guard knows him well enough that they would take our side even if he did nothing wrong. I wouldn’t,” he went on, “but still.”

“I understand. The past two years have been _so_ wonderful. Honestly, this may be cruel, but I wish my parents had disowned him sooner.”

He shook his head. “It isn’t cruel in the slightest. For some people, the world would be better off without them.”

His gaze was on the four-pointed Holy Sun that hung on the wall, and Daradi looked at it quickly before lowering her gaze. They were talking about her brother, but it was clear that the Mad Sun-King was one of those people. He hadn’t always been, from what her parents had told her, but the Derangement had driven him madder and madder. She had heard vague rumors about a rebellion in the city, but the one time she had even hinted at it, her father had turned on her with what she had first thought was anger, but then realized was fear. If she knew anything, her life would be in danger. It was one of the few times that it was best to be ignorant.

“I heard the screaming,” Lady Pana said as she walked into the room, five-year-old Pep holding her hand. “I assumed it was Daradi.”

Her husband laughed and got up, hugging her tightly before stooping down to pick up his scrawny son, tossing him in the air as the boy laughed.

“Oh, most assuredly.”

“And she’s staying the night, of course.”

“Of course. Zia wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Daradi, darling,” Pana said as they air-kissed each other’s cheeks, “how are you? Sleep carefully tonight - Zia may lock you in to make you be her match.”

“I’m well, thank you,” Daradi laughed, “and I will sleep very lightly. I’m surprised she hasn’t found a handsome man to elope with, yet.”

“We remind her often that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to see me very often,” her father told her with a conspiratorial wink. “Works like a charm each time. She would rather be here with me than enjoy the luscious attentions of a man.”

“Neurhen!” Pana poked his arm as Daradi blushed.

“What?” he asked innocently. “It’s true. I had to tell the maid yesterday to stop bringing me the pages of _The Tender Arts_ that she’s got hidden in her rooms. I would much rather she read it than do it. Besides, Daradi is twenty-one. I am positive that she knows what happens between men and women.”

“Yes, I’ve seen the pigs mate,” was Daradi’s light reply.

Neurhen sputtered with laughter and gave her a hearty thwack on the back that had her stumbling forward.

“See? She’s practically an expert on the matter.”

Pana was trying not to laugh, but failing. She finally took Pep and set him down.

“Fine. Have it your way. And no,” she said as Neurhen opened his mouth with a wicked grin, “we are _not_ doing it how the pigs do.”

“What do pigs do?” Zia asked as she sailed back into the room.

“Sex,” her father supplied.

“Ew! Stop talking about you two having sex! That’s gross! Ugh, Daradi, make them stop.”

“If only I could,” Daradi told her sadly.

“Well, let’s play a game! Papa, did you know that Sun-King Ranan the Firebird mandated that taxes be sorted on a sliding scale, with the wealthiest citizens paying more and the poorest paying almost nothing?” Her father made an interested noise as she started pulling out a simple board game. “He did! It was later reversed by Sun-King Hivas, but I think it was very fair - far fairer than what we have now. Yes, the wealthy pay more, but his reasoning was that if one made one hundred shards a month, a thirty percent tax rate meant they only took home seventy shards - which isn’t enough to live on at all - whereas someone making ten thousand shards a month still had seven thousand left over. It makes more sense, then, to tax people on a sliding scale depending on their income, or income group. Five percent or so for the poorest - or not at all - and a much larger percentage for the richest.”

“But don’t we deserve the money we make?” her father asked lightly.

Zia sighed like he should know the answer. “But we make our money largely due to the hard work of others, who sometimes make hardly a thing. Besides, as Sun-King Ranan pointed out, the wealthy get far more out of society, and so should give far more back. The Sundom has more than enough wealth to share with everyone - at least to make sure everyone is properly fed, clothed, housed, and even educated. May we please donate some of our money, Papa?”

“I knew that was coming,” he laughed as he shook his head. “No, Zia. We already donate a great deal in addition to our regular tithing,” he said loudly as she started to whine. “Trust me, I pay my employees extremely well; they don’t want for anything.”

“But others —”

“Are not currently our concern. Yes,” he said in a more gentle voice as her lips trembled, “I am concerned about how impoverished some of our people are. I do what I can to provide for those under my care. I cannot help everyone, my darling.”

She huffed, then rolled the dice. “Well … Fine, I guess.”

“Helping some is better than helping none,” Daradi put in.

“I just want to help everyone.”

“We know,” Pana told her with a smile. “You have a kind and generous soul, Zia. You will most certainly find a way to help as many people as you can.”

Zia heaved another sigh, but then she won a round and perked right back up. It wasn’t until they were getting into bed that she looked at Daradi seriously.

“I’m going to be a magistrate one day.”

Daradi smiled and nodded, smoothing the blankets. “Of course you are.”

“I mean it,” her friend pressed. “I am. If my husband lets me.”

The got her a sigh. “Then why not tell your father that you will only marry a man who will? They may be few and far between, but they _do_ exist. My father is one of them - but you can’t marry _him.”_

Zia giggled. “Ew! I don’t want to marry him! Oh, but then I would be your second-mother, and you would have to do what I told you to do …”

“We couldn’t be a match if you were my second-mother.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be _that_ odd, since we aren’t _actually_ related.”

That had Daradi flopping back and covering her face. “Oh, by the Sun, Zia … You think up the wildest of plans for the simplest of things.”

“Doing things the easy way is boring.” She snuggled against Daradi, gently caressing her stomach over the silk of her nightgown. “You’re so beautiful. Not like me.”

“This again?” Daradi held Zia close and stroked her hair, kissing the top of her head. “You’re beautiful, Zia, just in a different way. How boring would it be if we all looked the same?”

“But I’m so splotchy.”

“Not nearly as splotchy as you think you are. Your skin isn’t necessarily _bad,_ Zia.”

“But dark skin is blessed.”

She had a point, but Daradi refused to give in. “And your kindness more than makes up for any blessing you’re missing out on because you’re not as dark as you think you should be. Trust me, dearest.”

Zia nuzzled her neck, making Daradi shiver. “Boo,” she said in a very, very small voice.

Daradi turned her head and gently kissed Zia’s lips, getting a delighted gasp for her efforts. She smiled and stroked Zia’s cheek. “It’s true,” she murmured. “And if any man ever tells you otherwise, kick him.”

Zia laughed as she kissed Daradi and Daradi kissed her back, turning on her side for a better angle. They gently ran their hands over each other’s sides and backs, over their hips and down their thighs. Daradi had been concerned that she would have to give Zia step-by-step instructions, but she honestly should have known that Zia would start going to bed with her girlfriends as soon as possible.

She eventually turned her friend onto her back and slid her hand over her breasts after making a questioning noise and getting an enthusiastic one in return. Zia’s breasts weren’t as large as hers - another constant irritation for the younger woman - but her nipples, Daradi found, were far more sensitive. A gentle pinch had Zia squealing and arching her back up, nails digging into Daradi’s shoulders as she tried to wiggle her way under her.

Daradi pulled back and stared down at Zia with wide eyes. “Is … Is that normal?” she asked, letting Zia slide one leg on either side of hers.

Zia was panting and nodding, trying to pull Daradi back down for more kisses. “Yes,” she gasped. “… Should it not be?”

Daradi laughed and pinched her nipple again, getting a throaty groan of pleasure this time. “If it happens normally for you, then it’s fine. Oh, goodness …”

She kissed Zia briefly on the mouth, then worked her way down, along her jawline, the sides of her neck, the little dip at the bottom of her throat, until she had her face buried between Zia’s breasts, holding them together with both hands, kissing and sucking on both of them. Zia was covering her mouth to keep from waking everyone up with her cries of pleasure, writhing and whimpering and begging Daradi not to stop. Daradi murmured with laughter as she worked Zia’s nightgown up over her thighs and hips, exposing her stomach, pulling it over her breasts, after which Zia finished pulling it off. She sat up a bit to look down at her friend’s body - she’d grown up wonderfully, no matter how often she declared herself fat and unattractive.

“… Daradi?”

She shook her head and leaned down to kiss Zia once again. Zia made a questioning noise when Daradi shifted her weight onto one arm, but her next one was a short yip as Daradi’s fingers found their way between her legs. She rubbed slowly through the wetness there while Zia arched her hips up and whispered pleas for her to keep going, to do it faster and harder. She was going to leave scratches on Daradi’s back, and Daradi bit back a hiss when finally rubbing Zia’s little nub of pleasure caused her to dig her fingernails in especially hard. She nibbled on Zia’s ear for a moment before kissing her way down her body.

“I’ll be back,” she whispered.

Zia made a breathless noise of eagerness before Daradi scooted down and settled between her legs, kissing her thighs and privates before sliding her tongue up from the entrance to Zia’s body to her little nub, circling it before drawing her tongue back down again. Her friend was making a lot of noise, but Daradi wasn’t that worried. Her parents knew she was there and would most likely know what they were doing, and it was a well-known secret that women pleasured one another when their husbands were gone, or when they didn’t have one. It would only be embarrassing if Neurhen or Pana mentioned anything. She doubted they would, though. The husband of the last woman she herself had been with had walked in on them, blinked, then turned back around and left and hadn’t said a thing about it once they had finished.

_“Daradiiiii!”_

Zia’s squeal of release had Daradi laughing. She kept going until her friend’s shudders had stopped, then wiped her mouth off and kissed back up her body, grinning down at her.

“How was it?” she whispered.

Zia’s eyes were blurry with pleasure, and her smile was absent and angelic. She pulled Daradi down for more kisses and didn’t seem to mind the taste.

“Perfect,” she murmured. Daradi giggled. “I want to do that for you, now.”

One eyebrow went up. “Oh?” Zia nodded, and Daradi sucked on her lower lip for a moment before rolling onto her back. “Do you know what to do?”

“Of course,” was the answer as Zia rolled her eyes. “Why wouldn’t I? Rifue ---”

“I trust you,” Daradi laughed softly.

Zia dove in with enthusiasm and skill. Daradi’s own noises of pleasure and encouragement were softer, but she barely had to direct Zia to lick her how she liked, and her friend was more than happy to do what Daradi wanted. Words like ‘perfect’ and ‘beautiful’ and ‘delicious’ drifted up to her, and Daradi’s body eventually tensed with release as the pleasure shot through her. She gasped and shuddered, whispering Zia’s name while running firm fingers through her hair.

“Did I do it good?” Zia asked once Daradi had settled back down. She kissed up Daradi’s body, mimicking her almost perfectly, and kissed her lips.

Daradi brushed her friend’s sweaty hair out of her face and nodded. “It was wonderful,” she murmured.

That got a wide grin and scrunched-up nose as Zia flopped onto her side and snuggled close to Daradi.

“I’m glad. Thank you. I’ve wanted to do that with you for so long …”

Daradi rested her arm beneath Zia’s head and kissed her temple. “So have I,” she whispered. “I just had to wait until you were old enough.”

“I’ve _been_ old enough.” Zia was trying to pout, but a yawn interrupted her.

“Well. Go to sleep, love. We have an early morning tomorrow.”

Zia yawned again and closed her eyes, one arm over Daradi’s stomach. “… love you …”

“I love you, too.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my friend & i just kind of decided daradi's dad is the coolest, & bad shit happens

Her home was full of people, all of them talking in hushed, fearful voices. Daradi stood at the top of the stairs and tried to listen in, but she only caught a few words here and there. Things had gotten worse over the last couple of years. The raids and sacrifices were getting more frequent and gruesome, and the underground rebellion in the city was growing with each new atrocity. She was no longer allowed to go outside the house without two armed escorts, and going into the city was right out. Sometimes Jiran’s soldiers would sweep through, and she and the rest of the women in the household had to hide in a secret cellar that Borund and the other men had built just for that purpose. She and the rest of her friends had to send letters to one another as opposed to going to visit.

Daradi also had the suspicion, based on her father’s behavior and what little she could catch from these meetings, that he was part of the rebellion. She never asked, though - he would refuse to tell her if she did, because it would be better for her not to know if the soldiers came for him.

So she sat at the top of the stairs and held her knees to her chest, face creased into a frown, jumping a bit with every thump she heard. It was one or another of the men hitting a table for emphasis, but it still scared her. She wanted to help, but there was nothing she could do.

“What are you doing here?” her mother asked from behind her.

She jumped harder and almost screamed, then turned and didn’t meet her mother’s eyes. “I just …”

Her mother sighed. “Come, sit with me in the library.” She glanced down the stairs, and the look on her face told Daradi that she knew exactly what was going on in the living area.

“We’re all going to die,” Daradi murmured once they were in the small, cramped library. She looked around the stacks and rows of books and parchments and couldn’t help but see them all going up in flames. “Aren’t we?”

She got a heavy sigh as her mother opened a book without really seeing it. “I … I want to tell you no,” she finally said, “but I don’t know. The king is desperate.”

“The king is mad,” Daradi corrected her. She got a surprised look and gestured around them. “Look at what he’s done, Mother - the raids, the sacrifices, all the bloodshed even though it’s clearly not working. He’s raving mad. He won’t stop until the Derangement ends or he’s run out of people to murder. Or overthrown, but the princes don’t seem to be inclined to stop him - or he can’t be reasoned with.”

“The late queen was a good woman,” her mother told her. “I don’t believe her sons take after their father much at all. My assumption is that by the time they realized how bad things had gotten, he was beyond reason.” She pursed her lips. “I don’t know what we did to be cursed with the Derangement, but bloodshed isn’t going to stop it.”

“It’s making it worse. Perhaps …” She hesitated before taking a deep breath and plunging on. “Sun-King Hivas started taking slaves. He was a far stricter king than his predecessors. Sun-King Jiran is an even harsher king. Perhaps the Sun-God is mad about that? Perhaps we’re supposed to be gentle like the morning sun in the Jewel, not harsh like the midday sun in the desert?”

“The Sun-King _is_ the Sun-God,” she was reminded sharply.

“Not entirely.”

Her mother took a full minute to respond. “You have a point. And perhaps you are correct - but I doubt we will ever find out for sure.”

Daradi wanted to cry, but if her father had taught her anything, it was to keep a strong facade when she was feeling the worst. He had said it in the context of business, as men weren’t going to take her very seriously even if she _wasn’t_ upset, but she had found it useful in more and more situations lately. She went to the windows and made sure they were closed tightly and locked, and ran her fingers over the inlaid bronze patterns on them. They were the same patterns as in Zia’s home, and her heart clenched in fear for her friend, who hadn’t the sense to keep as low a profile as possible when she was out.

“Mother … Should we perhaps invite Zia and her family to stay with us?” she asked.

“What?”

“They would be safer here than in the city. They could come separately, if needed.”

Her mother rustled some parchments. “Your father and I have discussed that. I wish we could, but this point, it would look like they were fleeing and they would be sacrificed. They are safer where they are. If it comes to it, they are of course welcome to seek refuge here - but let us pray that that never happens.”

“… Of course.”

There were footsteps outside the room as her father’s light whistling reached them. It was their way of letting each other know that it was them, rather than a soldier there to collect sacrifices. The door unlocked and he stood in the doorway, face neutral. Daradi and her mother both stood up expectantly.

“The Hawks of the Lodge have been arrested,” he told them flatly.

Both women gasped and sat as their knees gave out. Daradi thought her heart would explode with how fast and hard it was pounding.

“No,” her mother whispered. “Girtaral, no. All of them?”

“Most of them. They’re to be sacrificed tomorrow at noon.”

Her mother was holding both hands to her mouth, but a horrified sob escaped nonetheless. “This can’t happen.”

“It will,” Girtaral told her sharply. He stepped into the room and paced in front of them. “Neither of you are to leave this house until further notice. I will have light bags packed for you, with sturdy clothing and rations. If you have to flee, Borund and Elgana will take you and the other women and try to get you to the Claim, or somewhere safer in the Jewel. The desert may also have places you can hide.”

“What about you?” Daradi asked in a small voice, reaching out to take one of her mother’s hands.

“The rest of the men will stay behind to give you as much of a head start as possible. I will _not_ hear _any_ arguments,” he said over her frightened protests. “I have told you before, my loves - my duty is to keep my family safe, even if it means my life. I will catch up with you if I am able. Borund and Elgana and I have found a few places that can hide you all with reasonable safety - I will go to each one to look for you.” He stopped pacing and took both their hands, his face pinched with sadness and fear. “I am so sorry that I never taught you both how to fight. It has become one of my biggest regrets in life. Should we survive this, you will both learn to fight with bow and sword. Don’t cry, my loves,” he said softly, reaching out to brush their tears away before pulling them in for a tight embrace. “Please don’t cry. The Sun may well show mercy on us before long.”

“The Sun seems to have abandoned us,” Daradi sobbed into his shoulder.

“Not yet,” he murmured in her ear. “There is still hope, while Kadaman and Avad live. Jiran can’t live forever, and the stress and his own madness may well kill him shortly. We simply must tread very, very carefully for the time being.”

***

It was past midnight two days later when there was a horrendous pounding on the front door. Daradi sat up in bed with a scream and immediately ran to her parents’ rooms, where her mother already had their travel packs out and was changing into the leather outfit that had been made for her. Her father held his finger to his lips and hurried out, and as Daradi also changed, she and her mother both listened carefully to see if it was Jiran’s men or not.

“Malaka!” her father finally called. “Daradi!”

They ran down the stairs, where there was a runner laying out on the majlis couch, almost passed out from exhaustion. Her father was ashen and in shock as they tumbled into the living area.

“Girtaral, what is it, my love?”

“Kadaman is dead,” he whispered. Daradi and her mother both started talking frantically, in a panic, but he held his hand up and didn’t see them even as he looked at them. “Almost all of the Hawks jumped into the Sun-Ring try to save their comrades the day before last, and Kadaman confronted Jiran and demanded he stop the bloodshed. He was sacrificed this afternoon.”

“What about Avad?” Daradi demanded.

“Gone. Fled.”

“He abandoned us?”

Her father shook his head slowly. “I … I am not sure.”

“He’s most likely fled to the Claim for asylum,” Elgana said as she hurried in with water for the runner. “Possibly help in stopping Jiran. The Oseram are the only tribe with the might to stop Jiran, if we can be convinced to fight together, for once.”

“Captain Ersa was Avad’s slave for a while, wasn’t she?” Borund asked as he came in, an Oseram battle hammer slung casually over his shoulder.

“That she was. He helped her escape, from what I hear. Or at least looked the other way.”

Borund nodded. “Then he will have gone to her for aide. I would bet my forge on it.”

“You don’t _have_ a forge,” was Elgana’s automatic reply.

“Well, I would if I did,” was the customary response. “Is his honor guard gone, as well?”

The runner nodded. “All of them,” he rasped, “as well as a few others - Captain Balahn among them.”

Girtaral finally relaxed, his shoulders dropping sharply as he breathed out a sigh of relief. “Then he is in good hands,” he stated. “I have never heard an ill word about Avad, aside from his notions about women and sexual —” He stopped himself, then sighed again. “Proclivities,” he finally finished. “Neither of which matter. He is a good man, and I highly doubt that he would abandon the Sundom. Seeking asylum in the Claim and raising an army with … Ersa, was it?” Borund nodded. “That seems his most likely course of action. This is … this is not good. Not at all. I don’t believe anyone thought that Jiran would sacrifice his own children. Kadaman’s loss is great, indeed. But it isn’t the end of the world. I pray that it is only the darkness before the dawn.”

Well, there went her chances of marrying Kadaman like Zia wanted, Daradi thought hysterically. Something wet dripped onto her hand and she looked down, puzzled, before realizing that she was sobbing. Her father took her into his arms and stroked her hair.

“Have faith, child,” he whispered. “We will all sleep down here for the rest of the night, together and safe.”

“I will never be able to sleep again, Father.”

“Of course you will. Stay in as much of this as you can bear.” He tugged at her leather sleeve. “You may yet have to run.”

She barely slept that night, and had nightmares after that had her waking up in cold sweats multiple times a night. It was almost a week later when there was an unexpected knock on the door, a gentle one in almost a rhythm. Her father strode to the door with no fear, opening it and bowing the man outside in. He was stately, regal in his bearing, dark of skin with grey-streaked hair. He said nothing, and ignored them as he and her father disappeared into his study. Her mother joined them with refreshments, and Daradi was left to wonder what was going on. She thought she recognized the man, but couldn’t place him.

“… Huh,” Elgana said as they sat together and went over basic sword skills.

“You know him?” Daradi asked.

“If I’m not mistaken, he’s Jiran’s top advisor - or close enough.”

Her heart clenched. “But … But why would he come here? Why would Father welcome him in?”

“If we’re lucky, he’s part of the rebellion.”

“So Father _is_ part of it.”

Elgana shrugged. “Couldn’t say.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

She got a grin. “Smart girl. If Girtaral trusts him, then we should, as well.”

Daradi stared at the study door with pursed lips as she thought. “Well, it would explain why Jiran has had such a difficult time quelling the rebellion, if his top advisor - or close enough - is helping them.”

“Maybe. By the forge, subterfuge gives me a headache. Come on, take this.”

She handed Daradi a wooden practice sword and Daradi groaned, but took it and stood. She was absolutely _horrible_ at fighting, but Elgana had told her that someone who knew very little about fighting was oftentimes more dangerous that someone who knew nothing or a lot - they were far more unpredictable than the latter two.

Still, she dropped her sword as soon as Elgana tapped it. “Ow!”

“Oh, please, I didn’t even touch you.”

“It pulled my wrist,” Daradi complained as she rubbed it. It had hardly hurt at all - had mostly surprised her - but she didn’t like it.

“Fine, then come at me slowly. Shape up your form.” She wanted to whine and refuse, but she also knew that learning how to fight would help her if they had to run.

She didn’t notice the time passing as Elgana harassed her into standing properly, then holding the sword properly, then parrying and thrusting. She was hesitant to actually strike the woman, but Elgana was in thick, heavy Oseram leather and metal, and in fact read a book as Daradi attacked her, swinging as hard as she could. She didn’t even budge.

“Having fun?” Borund asked when he walked in.

“Mm,” his wife replied, turning the page. She casually swatted the sword out of Daradi’s hands, sending it flying across the room. “There’s a fly in here.”

_“Uuuuugh,”_ Daradi groaned. “Can we please stop?”

“Not at all. Who will protect Borund if you don’t learn to fight? Go get it.”

One would think that Elgana was completely unbothered by the thought of her husband staying behind while she fled, most likely dying in order to give them as much of a head start on Jiran’s men as possible, but Daradi had seen the pinched look of worry on her face when she thought no one else could see, had seen the way she and Borund hugged and touched, and noticed how each had started happening more and more often. Borund likewise seemed unconcerned, but he was clearly as worried as his wife.

“Want me to take over?”

Elgana raised an eyebrow. “Well, I suppose I could sit down for a bit. I’m not really doing anything stressful, though.”

“You don’t have to rub it in,” Daradi muttered. She got snorts from both of them. “My arms hurt. I’m hot and sweaty.”

“And you will practice until one of us says that you are done,” Elgana told her sharply. “I know it hurts, little cog, but this is necessary.”

Daradi’s first thought was that death would be preferable, but then shame and fear filled her. Death was now a very, very real possibility. She took a breath and went into first form, holding the practice sword as steady as possible. Where Elgana had just let her strike her, Borund smacked at the sword, using his arm and hand as a makeshift weapon. Daradi was panting and soaked in sweat by the time the study door opened, and she was surprised to look at the water clock and see how late it was.

The man walked out, ignoring them the entire way, and didn’t even say goodbye. He closed the front door behind himself and her father locked it before turning to them.

“How is the practice going?”

“Terrible,” Daradi panted.

“Well,” Borund said. She looked at him in surprise, and he grinned. “You’re much better than you were even three days ago. You just need to build up your muscle.”

“Well, that’s enough for today, I think. Daradi, go bathe. You stink.”

“Oh, thank the Sun,” she gasped, trying to hurry to the bathing room but only managing a shaky, wobbling shuffle instead.

She let one of the maids wash her and then fill the copper tub with hot water again, laying back in it with her hair hanging out, relaxing in the heat and steam, letting it soothe her aching muscles. There had been no word about Avad, and she prayed that that meant that he had made it to the Claim safely. She prayed that he would find the Oseram cooperative, and come back soon with an army large enough to at least stop Jiran’s slaughter, if not dethrone him entirely. A few years previously, the thought of dethroning the Sun-King, the desire for him to die, would have been blasphemy of the highest order, a sure way to be banished into the shadows forever once she died, but she had stopped caring about that. She no longer believed that Jiran was the legitimate Sun-King. No proper Sun-King would turn this cruel and mad. He had to be stopped, and Avad was their best chance, if he hadn’t died on the way to the Claim or been murdered by the Oseram once he had arrived. But surely they would have the good sense to know that he was now their only chance to end his father’s slaughter.

She only got out of the bath when the water started getting cold. Her fingers and toes were all wrinkly, and she nearly started crying again as she remembered how hilarious she and Zia used to find it. They had been so young and innocent, even after the Derangement had started. She wished they could go back to those times.

“Are you alright, my lady?” her maidservant asked timidly.

She shook herself and gave the girl a tired smile. “Ah, yes. Just … reminiscing.”

“Aren’t we all, these days.”

“Yes, I suppose we are.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh look who decided to return to the sundom

“Lord Girtaral! Lord Girtaral!”

The banging on the door continued, and her father hurried to it and threw it open, the young man on the other side falling into him with a yelp.

“What, boy? What is it?”

“Prince Avad,” he gasped. “The Oseram. An army.”

Daradi ran into the room and skidded to a halt, eyes wide. “What?!”

He leaned forward with his head lowered and his hands on his knees. It had been months - almost a year - since the prince had fled the Sundom. Rumors and whispers about him raising an army had started circulating soon after, along with the growing sentiment that _he_ was the true heir to the throne, rather than his father or younger brother.

“Sit down, boy,” her father ordered, “and tell us what’s going on.”

After he’d caught his breath enough, the young man grinned wildly up at them.

“Prince Avad is marching on the Sundom with an army of Oseram,” he panted. “They’re headed right for us. They should be here within the week. He marches with an Oseram by the name of Ersa, and her brother Erend.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Elgana said from the doorway. “Ersa got everyone to cooperate.”

“She always had that knack,” Borund said. They were both beaming, and Daradi squealed with excitement and jumped up and down.

“Then we’re free!”

“Not yet,” her father told her evenly, though he was tense with excitement, as well. “Don’t declare it dawn until you see the sun. But this is good - this is very good. I would bet my last shard that he’s the one who started the rumors of the army and him being the true heir. Him or his contacts in Meridian. Whip his father into even more of a paranoid frenzy and encourage the citizens to rise up against him. Hopefully Jiran will start making mistakes. Within the week, you said?”

“Yes, my lord. It is said that every town and village they pass joins their ranks or surrenders. They’re nigh unstoppable.”

“Well, praise the Sun. Now look,” he said as he turned to Daradi and her mother, who had just come in from the kitchen, “if anyone asks, we only know of rumors and are staunchly in favor of Jiran. Is that clear?”

“Absolutely,” her mother said. Daradi nodded, as well.

“Good. When the army shows up - if they show up - we will lock down the entire estate and hopefully both they and Jiran’s men will ignore us. We may be south of the fighting, but be prepared to run, and be prepared to wait the battle out. It could take weeks or even months, depending on how well-armed each side is, how much food they have, whether or not they’ve had spies infiltrating each other’s ranks, and how successful any saboteurs are.”

“Yes, Father.”

“If needed,” he went on, “the men here will join the fighting, myself included - but I pray that isn’t necessary. We will give quarter to any of Avad’s troops that need it, and should he be defeated, claim it was at the threat of our lives if questioned. We may be too close to the city for them to come here, but one never knows. Daradi, you and the other women will still stay inside, as usual.”

“Jiran could just slaughter everyone near Meridian to keep Avad from taking it, couldn’t he?” she asked.

She got a slow nod. “That is one of my fears, yes. Our plans for you to flee still stand, until that time comes or Avad sits on the Sun-Throne.”

Daradi was trying not to cry - whether with joy or fear, she didn’t know - and failing; it was possibly a mixture of both. Avad hadn’t abandoned them, after all. She had been starting to lose hope that he would ever return, but returning he was. She eventually had to cling to her father and have him help her sit down as her sobs racked her, heaving things that left her throat aching and eyes stinging as her tears streaked down her face and took her makeup with them. Jiran’s madness had been going on for the past eight years, increasing in bloodiness and terror, and she hadn’t realized how tense she’d become due to it.

“Shh, darling,” her father murmured as he stroked her hair. “It will be over soon, one way or another. Have faith in our soon-to-be Sun-King Avad.”

***

The messenger had been right about Avad and his Oseram army reaching them within the week. It was four days later, in fact, when a small vanguard of the army got to the estate. Daradi and the other women hid just in case, and Daradi pressed her ear against the hidden wooden door to try to hear something, anything.

“… you for your offer,” a man was saying. “This is too close for His Radiance to stay here, and I don’t want him taking unnecessary trips, but my men and I will find it useful. Have the women fled, or are they hiding in there?”

There was a long silence, then her father coughed a bit.

“You don’t have to tell me. I just need to know how many non-combatants may need protecting. We can always relocate you all further south.”

“Ah …” He cleared his throat again, then there were footsteps and Daradi jumped back as the door opened. “Well, come out,” he told them all.

When he stood back, there was a tall Carja man in full armor, a halberd slung casually over his shoulder, standing firmly in the middle of the living area. There were Carja and Oseram soldiers all around, in fact, a burly man by his side with a thick strip of hair down the middle of his head, the sides shaved clean, and one of the most hideous beards that Daradi had ever seen. He was chewing on a stick that was commonly used to clean one’s teeth, and gave her and the other women a wide grin.

“Hey. I’m Erend. This is Toran.”

Daradi couldn’t get words out, but her mother stepped forward with a curtsy. “It’s our pleasure, good sir.”

Toran snorted with laughter. “She called you ‘sir.’”

“Yeah, I’m gonna need you to not insult me like that again.” But he was still grinning, and took her mother’s hand. Instead of kissing it, though, he gave it a firm shake. “We crashin’ here tonight, Cap’n?”

Toran rolled his eyes. “You filthy idiots aren’t getting this nice, clean home dirty.” Erend guffawed. “No, we’ll head back to base camp and update His Radiance on the situation.”

“You mean His Shininess.”

That made Daradi giggle and she covered her mouth, but Erend grinned and winked at her as Toran let out a long-suffering sigh.

“It’s what Ersa calls him. Kinda stuck.” Then he glared over her shoulder. “Oi, get out of the larder!” he yelled. “You weren’t invited! You damn useless savages …”

Daradi’s mother perked up. “Oh, please, take what you like. It’s the least we can do for you.”

Erend burst into hearty laughter. “Word of caution, lady - never tell an Oseram they can eat all they want. Because we’ll do it. Is that Elgana and Borund?”

Elgana had moved from the back of the small group of women to the front when her husband came in with a grin and a bounce in his step, and Erend stepped forward to hug them and thump their backs.

“Well, I’ll be. Didn’t think I’d see you two again. What happened to the inn?”

“I had other employees take it over,” Girtaral said. “We decided it was best for Elgana and Borund to stay here.”

“Yeah?” Erend nodded in approval. “Good.”

“You need us to fight?” Borund asked.

He shook his head. “No, you stay here and keep the squishies safe. We’ll send for you if we need you.” He looked Daradi up and down. “Toran, remind me to tell Avad I found a pretty girl.”

He got a groan as Daradi flushed and ducked her head. “Why do you and Ersa always do that?”

“‘Cause it bugs him, ‘cause he doesn’t know why we do it. Which is why we do it.” Toran was trying not to laugh. “Well, we’ll be on our way. It was good to meet you all.”

“Thank you,” Daradi managed to whisper as the captain turned. He looked over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “For coming back.”

Toran grinned and ran his hand over his short blond hair, his brown eyes twinkling. “Our pleasure, my lady.”

***

Three days later, there were soldiers at their door again - all Carja, this time, in full regalia. Daradi peeked around the stairs as her father greeted them. The leader was short and burly, head shaved clean on the sides with the top in a small, tight little bun, and a small strip of beard going from his lower lip to his chin. He was serious, yet still cheerful in a way, and his round face got rounder in a grin once he spied her.

“This would be Lady Daradi, correct?”

Her eyes widened as her father nodded. “You know of her?”

“The Oseram at your inn used to love her - ‘rent, please!’” he mimicked in a high voice. Daradi groaned and covered her face, but he just laughed and gestured for her to come into the room. “Though I dare say she’s grown up quite a bit since then. Well, come here and let me look at you. I’m Captain Balahn.”

“We still make her do it,” Borund laughed as he came in with a tray of food and wine.

Daradi trotted to her father and took his arm, looking up at the handsome captain shyly.  
“My lord,” she whispered.

He took her hand and bowed over it, kissing it gently. “My lady. It is a pleasure and an honor to meet you. His Radiance sends his regards and thanks for the use of your home. He wanted to come thank you himself, but Ersa knocked some sense into his head. But we _are_ grateful - we need all the allies we can get. You will be well-compensated once this is over.”

“Our freedom is all we need, Captain,” her father told him.

Balahn laughed. “Avad will compensate you nonetheless. My men and I will make camp outside tonight.”

Her mother scoffed. “Oh, nonsense. We’ve room for all of you.”

“All fifty of us?”

She paused, clearly did some math, then nodded. “Absolutely. Some of you will need to sleep on the floor, but at least it will be inside. Daradi, you, your father, and I will move back into your old room for the time being; it’s the smallest.”

“Yes, Mother,” she said.

“Captain, you will stay in my husband and I’s room, of course. Borund, if you wouldn’t mind some careful hunting? I’ll have the girls use the fire pits outside to cook meals, as well.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said.

“Let me send some men —”

_“Absolutely not.”_ Balahn drew his head back and blinked in surprise. “None of you will put yourselves in needless danger. Borund and Elgana are well able to bring back boars and anything else they can find.”

“I just do what Malaka says,” Girtaral laughed when the captain looked at him. “But she has a point - you need all the men you can get, and if even one of you so much as sprains a finger, it could cost a life.”

The captain nodded. “… You two make very good points. We can help clean, at least. You shouldn’t have to clean up after fifty people by yourselves, and we’re adults; we know how to care for ourselves.”

“Mmm … Very well. That’s fair.”

Balahn grinned again and bowed. “Thank you, my lady.”

“My pleasure. Daradi, go clean the room out.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Her old room wasn’t difficult to clean up. She had moved into Ranaman’s larger room after her father had kicked him out, so it was fairly clean already - it just needed to be aired out and have fresh bedding put on. She frowned at the bed. It was only large enough for two people, and only if they really liked each other. One of them would have to sleep on a cot.

No, the cots would be used for the soldiers. She tapped her lips as she thought. The extra bedding would also probably be used for them, so sleeping on the floor would be terrible. But her old window seat … _that_ was big enough - barely - for her to curl up on. It had its own pillows, as well, and there was a small chest that was roughly the same height that could be pushed against it to give her more space. She was doing just that when there was a knock at the door. She turned, and Captain Balahn was in the doorway with one of her maids.

“Oh! Captain!” She curtsied. “How may I help you?”

He saw her glance at the maid and grinned. “I didn’t think you or your mother would be comfortable with you being alone with a man. Do you need any help?”

She ducked her head and smiled. “Oh, no, thank you. I’m almost done.”

“That bed won’t fit all of you,” he observed, and she gestured to the chest and window seat.

“I’ll be sleeping here.”

“Why not use a cot?”

“Oh, no no no. You all should use those, and the extra bedding. I’ll be fine here. There’s plenty of room - I don’t take up much space. I just need to get an extra blanket.”

He laughed a bit. “No, no you don’t. Well, if you’re sure you don’t need any help …”

Daradi laughed. “I would assume that you have better things to do, Captain.”

“My men have it covered. I’ll let your parents know that you’re almost done.”

He gave her a short bow, and she dropped another small curtsy. After he’d left, she hurried to her parents’ room and grabbed a few sets of clothing, then to her room and did the same, along with a few books and personal items from each room. She was nervous about men sleeping in her room - in her bed - but reminded herself that _these_ soldiers were honorable men, and if anything happened, she felt that she could go to her father, who would go to the captain, who would take care of whatever issue had arisen.

Once she was done, she hurried back downstairs and gave a small meep as she was inadvertently thrust into a sea of soldiers, their armor in various states of removal. Almost all of them were barrel-chested with muscle, and even the slighter ones were all wiry muscle. Daradi hadn’t seen so many well-built men in her life, and was suddenly inundated with fantasies about laying with all of them. She covered her face and prayed they didn’t notice her blushing, but they didn’t seem to notice her at all.

Once she managed to make her way to the front door, she saw her mother sitting in the foyer and watching the men, a small fan in her hands and a slight smile on her face. She glanced at Daradi and gestured to the seat next to her.

“Just admiring the view.”

Daradi couldn’t help the scandalized laugh that escaped her lips. _“Mother!”_

“What?” she asked as her smile turned into a grin. “They’re fine specimens, all of them.”

“Mother, you’re married!”

“That hardly means I can’t look. Ooh, look at _that_ one …”

Daradi giggled and settled back to admire the men with her mother. She tried to not be as obvious, but the men clearly knew they were watching. Their stretching became more exaggerated, showing off their bodies, and occasionally they flashed the two women a grin or a wink.

“Gentlemen, please,” her mother protested when one of them took his tunic off, but her voice held no protest whatsoever and she was still smiling as she looked the man over. “There are ladies present.”

“Oh?” he asked. “We hadn’t noticed.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.”

“And will you or your daughter sing for us tonight?”

“Alright, alright,” Balahn said as he came up the steps. “Stop flirting.”

_“They_ started it,” was the amused response.

“Doesn’t mean you have to continue it. You want me to tell Avad?”

“No, sir!” the room chorused as the men started pulling more clothes on.

Malaka sighed and frowned. “You _do_ know how to ruin a lady’s fun, Captain.”

“Is she ogling?” Girtaral asked as he came up behind Balahn. “She’s ogling, isn’t she.”

“Just a little,” she confessed as he came over and kissed her, then kissed Daradi’s forehead.

“Well, there’s no reason you can’t look.”

“Uuuuugh …”

Balahn chuckled. “They do this often, do they?”

“Sometimes.”

“Well, Borund and Elgana are back, and they brought boars, geese, and a turkey. They’re cleaning them now.”

Daradi nodded. “Excellent. How long will you all be staying?”

He shrugged. “A night or two. Depends on when we get word that we’re moving out. If, Sun forbid, we get pushed back, we’ll be taking you all with us - Jiran’s men will kill you for sure for sheltering us.”

She shivered. “We’ve travel packs set aside, if needed.”

“Excellent. I hope that doesn’t come to pass, but it’s good to be prepared.”

***

She and her mother did, indeed, sing that night. The men sang along with them with varying levels of skill, and while the entire mood was tense, there was also a shaking hopefulness to it. In a few weeks - the captain had said the same as her father, that the fighting could take a month or more, depending on any number of factors - they would hopefully be free from Jiran’s tyranny, with Prince Avad on the throne and the raids and sacrifices ended. Balahn had also said that Avad planned to abolish slavery, as well as expand women’s rights.

“So I really want to look into opening a women’s college,” she was telling the captain later, sitting bundled in a blanket by a fire pit and holding a mug of steaming cider in both hands. “Women should have the chance to be as educated as they please without needing their father’s or husband’s permission, after all - women of any class or tribe - and a college specifically for them - for us - would help that, I think.”

He nodded and took a drink of his wine. “I agree. A lot of parents choose private tutors for their daughters, and a central space with female professors would most likely make them more at ease. The women would be safer, and in a group environment. Unfortunately, not all tutors are honorable men.”

Daradi sighed and nodded. “I’ve had friends …” She coughed and shook her head. “Well. That’s neither here nor there.”

“Mm. What’s that box?” he asked, clearly changing the subject.

She followed where he was pointing, and smiled. “Oh, that’s a suggestion box. Father put it up so any of our workers can put in requests or suggestions without necessarily naming themselves, and it also lets him go over them at his leisure. Sometimes it’s a request for a wage increase, sometimes a suggestion for how to improve the farming … It’s quite useful.”

“Huh.” He rubbed his chin. “Fascinating. Your father seems to be a very good man.”

She nodded with a smile. “Oh, yes, he is. He’s always very generous, and pays his people well. I can only hope to be half as good at business and generosity as he is.”

“You’ll be taking over from him, then?”

“Oh, yes. My older brother … Well. Good riddance. Father has been training me in the ways of business since I was very young. I was three when I started going to the city with him.” Her heart dropped and she sighed into her cup. “It was so much nicer, back then …”

Balahn reached for her, but only hovered his hand over her own. Still, the gesture was comforting. “And it will be again, my lady. I promise. Ersa and Erend are practically unstoppable on their own, much less with an entire army at their backs, much less with Avad’s planning and tactics. The fight won’t be easy, but it _will_ be finished, and Avad will take the throne. The time of the Sun’s harshness is fast dying, and a gentler day will dawn soon.”

Daradi smiled again as she nodded. “I believe you,” she whispered. “I just wish this hadn’t been necessary.”

“We all do. Still, it is what it is, and you wouldn’t believe how far into the future Avad is already planning. He’s going to make good on every single thing he’s promised, and nothing will be able to stop him.”

“Even ending the Derangement?”

Balahn sighed. “That will take a long time, I think, but he will also address it. Hopefully reaching out to other tribes - making peace with them first, of course - will yield clues as to how it started and how to end it. In the meantime, peace and freedom will come to Meridian at last, and we will all be able to rest easy at night.”

“The slaves will need employment,” Daradi murmured. “Have we enough people to take them in?”

“We’ll find a way. I’m sure Avad has thought it through. It won’t be easy, but it will be done.”

“Well,” she told him, “I’m certain that my father will be more than willing to take in as many as he can. He pays very well, too, as I said.”

He was smiling at her in the firelight, and she gave him a shy smile in return. He was _very_ handsome.

“You and your family are very generous people, my lady. May the Sun bless you for that.”

“Daradi!” her mother called from the doorway. “Come to bed!”

Balahn stood and held his hand out for her, then walked her to the house.

“You ladies sleep well.”

“And you, my lord.”

His eyes crinkled with his smile. “I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a huge crush on balahn and i will not apologize for it


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hahaha guess who fell off the writing wagon sorrryyyyyyyy
> 
> anyway have a celebration

The fighting took a month and a half.

Soldiers came and went, and the estate was open to all of them. She never saw Prince Avad or Captain Ersa, but Captain Toran was by a few times, and Captain Balahn came back only once. His smile was tired and he was filthy and looking a little gaunt, but his entire attitude was hopeful.

“You make the best spiced cider,” he murmured as she refilled it for him.

Daradi laughed. “All I did was reheat it.”

“But you reheat it so excellently.”

She just smiled into her mug, then cleared her throat after a moment. “It’s almost over, isn’t it?”

The captain shrugged. “Can’t say until it is, but Jiran’s running out of soldiers. Hopefully it won’t be long.” She saw him turn his head slightly toward her. “Hopefully I’ll see you at the celebrations after.”

Daradi flushed. “Possibly. There will be a lot of people celebrating, I’m sure.”

***

Another ten days later, it _was_ over. The soldiers didn’t come back, but a runner nearly fainted on their doorstep, and there were cheers and sobs and even the men cried with relief. Prince Avad - no, _Sun-King_ Avad - sat on the Sun-Throne, and word had it that there had been a very public, very elaborate purifying ritual before he even changed into his royal garb, refusing to wear anything but a simple linen tunic and trousers until the entire palace, in fact, had been purified and blessed. Even then, it was said, he was clearly uncomfortable in his regal garb, uncomfortable being in the spotlight - but it was also said that Captain Ersa was more than willing to bask in it for the both of them, being as over-the-top as possible until the king smiled.

The rumors of them being lovers came almost as quickly. Daradi was scandalized, but her parents just shrugged and said the king would do as he pleased, that he had certainly earned the right to take a lover of any tribe he wished - especially one so crucial in the liberation of Meridian - and so long as he didn’t marry the captain, there was no reason to be concerned. 

The Oseram found the idea to be absolutely hilarious. Borund and Elgana dissolved into cackles and guffaws whenever the subject came up, cheering Captain Ersa for literally sticking it to the Carja by fucking their king. There was the same underlying tone of it being fine as long as the two didn’t marry, but they didn’t let that minor issue get in the way of their mirth.

There were still minor skirmishes that broke out - and would for some time - so Daradi and the other women were confined to their estate for several months, drilling with swords and halberds. Daradi grew frustrated and declared she wouldn’t drill any more several times, until one time, there were servants playing a soothing, swaying melody when she tromped outside with a scowl, stopping in surprise as she watched her mother literally dance with her sword, her movements graceful and precise, balancing on the toes of one foot with her other leg held up and across her thigh as if she were sitting cross-legged, her right arm stretched out to the side and her left arm held up, the sword parallel to her right arm.

She was moving slowly and precisely. She never wavered, never gave any sign of exhaustion; her expression was consistently serene, her smile slight, her eyes covered with a silk band. After a few minutes, as Daradi watched in awe, her pace quickened. It never lost its grace, but the curved white sword sliced through the air like silk, her mother bending backward and over the sword, one leg and then the other raising up to get her over it. She didn’t even touch the ground.

“I want to do that,” Daradi blurted as her mother was spinning the sword around her waist, her chest, her neck, her arms, her wrists.

It was her father, laughing quietly behind her, who answered.

“We thought that this method might interest you. You are an excellent dancer, my sunbeam, and exceptionally graceful. I’ve called a master swordsman from Meridian to train you - he should be here tomorrow. Between him, your mother, and your natural grace, you ought to learn in no time.”

“That confident that this would get me interested in swordfighting, were you?” Daradi asked dryly.

Her father laughed again and kissed her cheek. “I know my daughter well. Malaka,” he called. Her mother didn’t stop moving, but tilted her head a little. “When you are done, my love, I have a hot bath waiting for you.”

That brought a soft huff of laughter as her mother slowed her dance and then stilled, sliding the silk band from her eyes as she walked to her husband and daughter.

“Well, my lord husband,” she murmured with a small curtsy, “please lead the way.”

Daradi rolled her eyes and started her own slow dance as her parents disappeared into the house, trying to mimic what her mother had been doing but without the sword. That could - that _would_ \- come later.

***

“Are you sure you want to practice today?”

Daradi glanced over her shoulder as she took out her ornamental sword - a gift from Borund and Elgana for subtly pushing a man who had been harassing her into a fountain, like they had taught her.

“It’s early yet. Besides, it’s far less a walk than it used to be.” She pulled her long black hair into a high ponytail, then flipped it over her shoulder. “Besides, I won’t be able to sleep tonight, if I don’t wear myself out a bit.”

She could do it blindfolded now, like her mother, with or without music.The silk was cool against her eyelids, just like the summer breeze that wandered through, ruffling her hair and rustling the stalks of maize as the fieldhands worked and watched. The sun was warm on her skin, and she could hear the gurgle of water, as well. It was all soothing.

What _wasn’t_ soothing was how she kept tripping up and falling when she tried the graceful backwards leap over the sword that her mother made look so effortless. She had left her sword sheathed for a reason, and was glad for it when she landed right on the covered sharp part of the blade. It was frustrating - she knew she could practice with a halberd, that maybe that would help, but the weight of the sword was also important. She _was_ getting better, but not at the pace that she wanted to be.

So she lay there on her back, hip sore, staring up at the mesa and imagining that she could see the Spire from so far away, and sulked until she was called in for lunch.

“How did you learn, Mother?” she asked, rubbing her hip.

“Painfully,” was the light answer. Malaka shrugged when Daradi made a nasty face. “Stretch a rope out a few inches from the ground and learn to walk across it. That will help you. I will show you after lunch.”

Daradi beamed. “Thank you, Mother.”

They practiced until they left for Meridian in the early evening, wanting to get to their townhome and settled in order to be at the Temple of the Sun early enough to get a good spot for dawn prayers. His Radiance, Sun-King Avad - and Daradi would continue to add his name and at least one of his titles for some time, reminding herself that the Sun-Throne was no longer blemished with evil - had been leading prayers there weekly since the Liberation, but that day, the day before the one-year anniversary of the Liberation, had been declared a day of mourning that would be followed by three official days of festivities to celebrate the end of Jiran’s bloody reign.

She really needn’t have worried about getting a good spot. Zia - small, delicate Zia - was staring down a group of men with her fists clenched, daring them to try to take the spots that she had reserved for her and Daradi’s families.

“There you are!” she called out cheerfully, unclenching one fist to wave at Daradi. “See?” she told the men in the snottiest voice Daradi had yet heard from her - and Daradi had heard a _lot_ of snotty voices from her friend. “I _told_ you these spots were reserved.” She huffed smugly and latched onto Daradi’s arm, waiting happily for the prayers to start as their families greeted one another.

No one bothered trying to rebuke her - Zia was, always had been, and probably always _would_ be incorrigible. The group of men glared, muttered, and stalked away, and Zia stuck her tongue out at them behind their backs.

There was a rippling murmur a few minutes later, when His Radiance, Sun-King Avad entered the Temple. Daradi held her breath as her heart pounded with excitement, clutching both of Zia’s hands in hers to keep the girl from waving to the king. His ceremonial garb was such a dark maroon as to be almost black, in stark contrast to its usual bright cream, and it fit the day. Captain Ersa was following him, somber, with one hand at the small of his back but only touching him when he hesitated. The Vanguard took up stations around the outskirts of the Temple, weapons casually at the ready even while their heads were lowered slightly in respect.

His Radiance, Sun-King Avad, looked out over the gathered faces for a long moment, his own as somber as Captain Ersa’s, if not moreso. Finally he nodded, once, and the crowd nodded back before he turned to face the rising sun, holding his arms up and out, raising his voice along with the gathered Sun-Priests’. More than one person’s cheeks were wet when his name came in the place of Jiran’s; they had cut him out of the Song to the Sun entirely, wiped him from its holy cadence, purified the act of worship.

He turned once the last echoes had faded and once more watched them for a long time, before nodding again and extending his hand and arm out for them to precede him from the Temple. They filed out quietly, and even Lord Neurhen’s hand firmly holding Zia by the back of her dress to keep her from running ahead to find them the best spots couldn’t bring a smile to Daradi’s face.

Once they were seated in the farthest seats around the Sun-Ring, Zia being firmly admonished to be thankful that they had gotten seats there at all, His Radiance, Sun-King Avad entered slowly, and made his way to the altar in the center, set up in remembrance for every tribe, even while each tribe had its own place of mourning at the cardinal points of the Sun-Ring. Daradi couldn’t see his face, and it seemed he had to start several times before his voice was loud enough to reach everyone.

“Peace,” he finally said as he stared at the candles, “is difficult to obtain. Maintaining it, even more so. The Carja have much to atone for, and much work ahead of us in reforming our tribe. The losses that we caused can …” He took a deep breath before going on. “... can never be made up for, therefore I pledge to be a peaceful ally to all tribes, to give where we once took, to help where we once destroyed, and to acknowledge that any and all animosity and distrust toward us is a logical reaction. Meridian will be open to all, and a place of peace. You have my word - the word of the Sun.”

He gestured and then stepped back, and Captain Ersa stepped up. She, unlike His Radiance, Sun-King Avad, looked firmly around the Sun-Ring as she spoke, her voice echoing out and full of confidence and gentleness.

“We’ve never been at war with Carja civilians,” she said firmly. “I saw it for myself - all they wanted to do - all _you_ wanted to do - was live in peace. It was pretty hard to hate you once I saw the state you were in for myself. But it can be hard to remember that, so I swear by my forge that I will do everything I can to maintain the peace between our tribes. Our dead deserve nothing less.”

She lit a candle and then stepped back, and representatives from the Nora and Banuk stepped up in turn to offer their own words. Once finished, the king once again stepped forward.

“Walk in the Sun’s merciful light, in All-Mother’s embrace, in the ease of the Forge, the softness of the earth, and the gentle blue light. Please, come down to offer your own prayers.”

Then he turned, Captain Ersa by his side and the Vanguard surrounding him, and walked, alone, out of the Sun-Ring.

***

“Doh ‘at’th why I wanna tegguhpar’ uh Ginn’awk,” Zia was saying the next day as she shoved as many sweets into her mouth as she could. It was honestly the most intelligible thing she’d said in the past hour.

“Perhaps it could be arranged,” Daradi told her, slightly distracted. It set Zia off in excitement again, which let Daradi’s mind wander in peace as they sat at a table and enjoyed the sunlight and festivities around them. It would have been wonderful to have been invited to the celebrations at the palace, but they didn’t rank high enough to get invitations. Still, the warm cheer of the day was infectious, and the Banuk across from them even let Zia flat-out take his quill and the parchment he’d been writing on in order to start sketching some design or another and make up her own laws about whatever she was sketching, comparing and contrasting them to current laws, speculating on what future laws there might be once everyone could fly.

Daradi blinked and brought her attention back until she gathered that Zia wanted to make flying machines that anyone could use, then smiled, nodded, and looked back over the crowd. The sun baked everything in warmth and the breeze made it bearable, and eventually Lord Neurhen went and purchased another quill and more parchment for the Banuk man, apologizing for Zia’s unintentional theft. The man laughed it off but thanked Lord Neurhen for replacing his supplies. Zia had decided that she was tired by that time, cushioned her head on her arms, and fallen asleep at the table. Her parents had just rolled their eyes and let her be.

Dusk, however, woke her with exuberance. Prayers were done wherever anyone stood, the unorthodox approach bringing laughter with it, and then Daradi was being pulled around to every interesting thing that Zia could find, the younger woman declaring that she loved and would marry every third man she saw.

“And where will you _house_ all these husbands?” Daradi finally laughed.

“Oh, they’ll have their own houses,” Zia said airily, “and I will go back and forth as I please. They will all keep me in great comfort for the rest of my life.”

“And how will you tell which child belongs to which man?”

“... We shall adopt the ways of the Nora in that regard,” Zia declared after a moment. “The only thing we will know for sure is that the children came from me, so it’s only logical we do that. My husbands will share equal responsibility for all our children, and when the children are old enough to determine which husband they most resemble, that husband will fully take over responsibility for his child.” She nodded decisively, mind made up.

Daradi laughed. “You will leave no husbands for the rest of us.”

“I shall _make_ husbands for the rest of you.”

“Pana, you birthed a strange, strange child,” Malaka laughed.

“And Neurhen put her in me,” was the mildly exasperated sigh. Said culprit guffawed and ruffled his daughter’s hair as she spluttered in offended embarrassment over the turn of the conversation.

***

When they finally returned to the estate three days later, her father was looking at her thoughtfully as they walked. Daradi raised her eyebrows curiously.

“Zia is certainly eager to marry.”

“Zia is eager for the conjugal relations that come with marriage,” Daradi corrected him dryly.

“Hm.” He was silent for a few minutes, then finally asked, “And when will you yourself marry?”

Daradi laughed and coughed, shaking her head. “I won’t be able to,” she joked, “with Zia marrying so many men.” Her father laughed and shrugged, and she shrugged as well. “When do you _want_ me to marry?”

“When you are ready to. Not that I haven’t had many offers, but you are precious to me, and I won’t let you go but for the very best of men.”

“In that case, I will die an old maid, caring for you and Mother in your old ages.” That brought laughs from both parents, and she shrugged again. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I haven’t given it much thought, except to wonder where to find a nobleman who would want his wife to work - who would encourage and support it. I won’t settle for less.”

“Then neither shall I,” she was assured as her father reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “Besides, your sword dancing is now rivaled only by your mother’s, so any man who would try to keep you at home had better sleep with armor on.”

That brought another laugh to Daradi’s lips. She shook her head. “Well, we’re busy enough as it is, right now. Rent is next week, and in the meantime we need to see if we can afford both a modest raise in wages as well as taking more workers on, or if we must choose between one or the other. As much as I would like to do both, if it comes down to it, we need the extra labor more.”

“We may be able to do both if we can figure out a modest, yet not insulting, wage raise.”

“True. We can look over our finances in the next few days and do the math.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'ma be sporadic in posting for a while until i get back into the writing groove >.< sorry about that


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> people are dead, and everyone's favorite whore is back!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hate myself but i'm dedicated to the aesthetic so there's a picture of a letter in this chapter with the text in actual text right below it

Everyone was dead. Her parents, the servants, everyone. Ranaman may not have gotten the exact ending he had wanted, but his revenge had still been almost entirely complete. Daradi had lost _everything._ She couldn’t even stay in her own home anymore. It wasn’t safe, and she couldn’t bear to look at the bodies. She didn’t know what to do with them, how to bury them.

“Hey,” the Nora woman said. “Do you need help?”

Daradi jumped and raised her gaze from where she’d been staring blindly at the floor. She hadn’t expected the woman to come back. She looked around her ruined home.

“Ah … Uhm …”

“Come on,” the woman said kindly. “I’ll take you to the city. You can … report this … and get someone out here to help.” There was the sound of a Watcher’s scan and Daradi flinched as she whimpered. “And you won’t have to walk alone. Ok?”

“Thank you,” Daradi whispered. The shock was setting in as the adrenaline of the past few hours wore off.

“Get what you need and lock up. I’ll wait out here.”

Lock. Lock up. Keys. She needed keys. She fumbled through her father’s study until she found his large keyring - hanging right by the study door - and stared around as she tried to think of what else she needed. She couldn’t remember. Her mind was blank.

Keys. She had the keys. She left the house and locked the door behind her, then followed close behind the Nora woman - Aloy, she’d introduced herself as - as they walked out of the estate grounds and along the beaten path towards Meridian. She jumped with every rustle in the jungle. Occasionally Aloy would slow down, touch her ear, look around, touch her ear again, then speed up once more.

The mesa grew and grew on the horizon, and the closer they got the more the tenseness in her shoulders loosened. Once they entered Meridian Village, Aloy brought her to the nearest guard. He took one look at her - disheveled, sweaty, makeup smeared all down her cheeks - and gestured for another guard to join them.

“What happened?” the first asked bluntly.

“Machines attacked her estate,” Aloy said when Daradi just started crying again. “Her brother lured them in. Daradi is the only survivor. I took care of the machines, and they took care of her brother.”

“The estate under the Spire?” Daradi nodded, and he nodded in return. “We’ll get people out there. Do you … have a family plot?”

“I don’t remember,” she whispered.

“Do you have a place to stay for now?”

She nodded. Surely she did. She had the keys. There were a lot of keys. The guards were nodding again.

“Alright. It’s getting late. Meet Commander Agenin at the guardhouse at dawn —” He took a closer look at her and clearly changed his mind. “Ah, right after noon prayers tomorrow. We’ll help with everything.”

She shook herself and nodded. “Thank you. Thank you, Aloy,” she said as she turned to the woman. “I’ll be fine from here.”

The Nora woman reached out and hesitantly touched her elbow. “Well … ok. As long as you’ll be ok.”

“I will. Thank you.”

One of the guards walked her to the Great Elevators and rode up with her. She must have been able to convince him that she was more rational than she actually was, because he left her at the top of the elevators and walked off. She stood there, looking around, then picked a direction and started walking. The last rays of the sun were bathing the buildings around her in a warm golden light that would normally have filled her with a sense of joy and wonder, but now filled her with dread at the thought of the impending night.

She needed to find a place to spend said night. An inn of some sort. She knew there was something significant about that, but her mind was a complete blank on the details. So she wandered as the sun set and street lamps were lit, until the sound of women laughing caught her attention. She followed it to a brightly-lit building with streamers all around it and lamps of colored glass bouncing in the persistent breeze across the mesa. There were women leaning out a few of the windows and standing outside, laughing together and calling to the passersby as two city guards lounged on either side of the door.

Daradi sighed with relief. An inn for women, it looked like. It was just what she needed. She wiped at her face as she made her way through the small crowd of men standing outside the front door, trying to make herself at least vaguely presentable.

“Welcome! What can we do for you tonight?” the woman at the door asked with a simpering smile and a wink. Her flirtatious demeanor disappeared as soon as she fully saw Daradi’s face, melting into concern. “Child, what _happened?”_

Daradi was starting to shake. She hadn’t eaten in almost a full day, in addition to her shock and stress.

“I, I’m sorry,” she whispered. She had just realized she didn’t have any money. “I just need a room for the night, but I haven’t the shards. I can pay you back later. There was an attack … my family …”

She trailed off when the woman held her hand up and looked over her shoulder.

“Najlana, go get Hela.”

“Ah, Hela’s busy right —”

_“I don’t care._ Go get her _now._ This is an emergency. Come in, my lady,” she told Daradi in a far gentler voice, her smile soft. “Sorina, please get the lady something to eat and drink, and a washcloth. My name is Quabora.”

She sat Daradi on a small majlis couch in a room just off the main one, settling next to her and brushing some of her sweat-sticky hair behind her ear.

“I’m … I’m Daradi …”

“That’s a beautiful name.” Quabora took her hand and squeezed it. “Hela will be down in a moment. You’re safe here. What —” She cut herself off and shook her head. “No, I don’t want you to have to repeat yourself. Thank you, Sorina.”

Sorina sat on her other side and made sure she ate and drank while Quabora gently wiped her face off with a damp washcloth. Daradi broke down sobbing at their kindness, and Quabora sighed and gathered her in her arms, pushing her headdress off to stroke her hair.

“Oh, darling …”

“Alright, what’s the emergency?” a husky alto voice asked. Daradi looked up at the thick-bodied, dark-skinned woman walking up to them, a robe pulled over herself and her bosom bouncing as much as her curls. Sorina moved over so she could sit next to Daradi.

“Child, what happened to you? Did a man do this?”

Technically, yes, but Daradi knew what she was asking and shook her head. The wine was slowly calming her.

“Quabora?”

“I don’t know. She just showed up like this, asking for a room for the night. She said there had been an attack, and her family …”

Hela nodded. “I see. Men or machines?”

“Both,” Daradi was finally able to whisper. “My brother … set a machine lure … everyone is, is …”

She broke down again, only able to nod when asked if the attack had been reported. She barely heard Hela order a room be freed and a bath drawn up, then she was helped upstairs, past the curious gazes of the men and women in the living area, and Hela herself undressed her and started bathing her. The hot water helped, but she couldn’t stop her tears.

“I’m so sorry,” she hiccuped hoarsely. “I haven’t any shards right now to pay you.”

“Pay me for what, dear?”

“The room.”

“… Oh. Yes. The room. Don’t worry yourself. You’ve been through a lot.”

“Thank you.” She wiped her nose. “This is a lovely idea.”

“Mm? What is?”

“An inn for ladies.”

“An … oh. Yes, it is. Very lovely.”

“Fathers must be so relieved that their daughters and wives have a safe place to stay in the city.”

“Oh, yes,” Hela murmured, fingers stroking her scalp as she washed Daradi’s hair, “we keep the men quite satisfied here.”

“I … I have to see the captain of the city guard tomorrow, after noon prayers. I haven’t any clean clothes …”

“We’ll wash your dress. Ah … Why don’t you come and go by the back entrance for now? I’m sure you don’t want to be around a lot of people right now. You can stay as long as you need.”

“You’re so kind. Thank you.”

“Being kind is my specialty.” She helped Daradi stand, then dumped more warm water over her to rinse her off. “Come on, get out.”

She was toweled off and bundled in a warm nightgown, then settled into a large, comfortable bed. Hela leaned over and kissed her forehead with a warm smile.

“You get some rest, darling. We’ll wake you in the morning.”

Daradi wasn’t sure she would be able to get any sleep, but she nodded anyway. She was exhausted, but couldn’t sleep, as she’d feared. The horrible events of the day kept replaying in her head - the initial attack, the screams of the fieldworkers and her mother as she’d been checking on them, of her father locking her in the pantry, him killing the Watcher and then the Ravager’s cannons, the long hours spent sobbing in the dark pantry until the Nora Aloy had arrived, the reveal of Ranaman’s betrayal, hiding back inside again until the fighting had ended …

She didn’t know when the memories stopped and the nightmares began, but she was eventually woken by someone gently shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes with a start. Hela was smiling down at her with a tray of food and wine at her side.

“Time to get up, dear. Your dress is clean, and I’ve breakfast right here. I’ll take you to see Agenin myself.”

She was thinking a little more clearly than the day before. She gave Hela a tiny, shaky smile as she sat up.

“Thank you so much. I can repay you —”

“No need, dear,” Hela interrupted her gently. “You need help, and I’m able to give it.”

“I …” Hela raised an eyebrow and Daradi sighed in defeat. “Thank you.”

“Good. Come, eat.”

She just wanted to curl up and sleep again - sleep forever. There was an aching hole in her chest and gut that was filled with nothing but pain. She could barely move. Hela had to help her with everything, but she didn’t seem to mind. After she was presentable, Hela walked her to the guard station.

The guard outside looked at them and snorted. “Making house calls, Hela?”

“That’s _Lady_ Hela,” she said primly, “and that’s actually a decent idea.” The guard groaned. “But no, Lady Daradi is here to see Agenin.”

“Don’t you have your _own_ guards to handle this sort of thing?”

Hela stepped up to him with narrowed eyes and her hands on her hips, ample breasts pressing against his armor.

“Look, _Felanot,_ the lady is here to see Agenin about her _entire family_ being _murdered._ She is _expected._ You go get him _right now,_ or by the Sun, I _will_ cause a scene.”

His eyes went wide behind his helmet as he started nodding quickly.

“Oh, she’s _that_ lady. My apologies. Please, come in.” He stepped to the side after pushing the heavy wood door open. “I will get Agenin right away. You, get the ladies refreshments.”

“Yes, sir,” the servant he’d spoken to replied before hurrying off.

“I’ll be back shortly, ladies,” he told them with a brief bow before turning on his heel and leaving.

_“Thank_ you,” Hela told him sweetly as she and Daradi sat. “Men are such cowards. They _think_ they’re all high and mighty, but they buckle under the _slightest_ amount of feminine pressure.”

She was _very_ pleased with herself, and Daradi was a little in awe of her. More than a little - she herself would _never_ dare to stand up to a man like that. She kept quiet and just held Hela’s warm hand until a tall, barrel-chested man stepped quickly into the room and over to them, sitting across from them and running a hand through his curly blond hair before picking up a quill pen and some parchment from the table.

“Lady Daradi. My condolences for your loss. I’m Commander Agenin. My men told me about your situation last night, and I dispatched some of them this morning to retrieve the bodies. Do you have a family plot?”

He was speaking shortly, to the point, but there was kindness in his voice. Daradi nodded.

“Ah, yes. At … at home.” Hela squeezed her hand. “I don’t want Ranaman buried there.”

Agenin smiled with no humor. “Oh, I’ve had run-ins with him before. He’ll be given a criminal’s burial, you have my word. I understand that this is very painful for you right now, but would you like to be there for the burial?”

A sob caught in Daradi’s throat. “I … I should … but the machines …”

“We’ll guard you well. Have you anyone to stay with right now? Other family? Friends?”

“Ah … I’m … Lady Hela is letting me stay at her inn right now …”

Agenin’s eyebrows went up as Hela coughed delicately.

“I see.”

“She’s still in shock,” Hela put in. “I’m certain she has places she can stay, but she’s welcome at the inn until she’s ready.”

Agenin was taking notes and nodding. “Thank you for your kindness, Hela. I will make sure that you are properly compensated.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“Your father had businesses, if I recall, yes?” She nodded. “Do you know who he left them to?”

“Me,” she whispered. “He trained me from the start.”

“Alright. If you need an escort to go back to your estate to retrieve things at any time, I’ll leave orders for the guard to do so. You have but to ask.” He looked down at his notes with pursed lips. “The good news is that we don’t really need an investigation - Ranaman took care of that himself. We’ll look into where he bought the lure, but that needn’t involve you. His debts, however, _do_ concern me. Do you know if there’s any reason for his … associates … to come after you for them?”

Daradi looked down and sighed. “I don’t know. He’s dead, so I would think - hope - that they would leave it at that …” The look on Agenin’s face had her drooping. Hela pressed warm tea into her hands. “Then yes. He’s always - _was_ always - in debt. I have no reason to believe that he _wasn’t_ as of yesterday.”

“We’ll try to verify that. In the meantime, I would encourage you to not go out at night, keep to populated areas, and get an escort if you need to go back to your estate or somewhere alone. If anyone tries to get what he owed from you, report it immediately. I don’t suppose you know who any of his associates are? No? That’s fine. I think we’re done here, then. Do you need assistance with your business ventures for the time being?”

She’d never done anything without her father, other than collect rent. “Ah …”

“I’ll have Avad loan me someone to help,” Hela said. Daradi looked at her in surprise as Agenin sighed. “What’s he going to do? Frown disapprovingly at me? Ask me if I care.”

“You just … _tell_ the Sun-King _himself_ what to do?”

Hela flashed her a grin. “Of course. I have lunch with my uncle twice a week - he works in the palace. I’ll tell Avad tomorrow.” She hummed and tapped her lips thoughtfully. “Actually … no. I’ll just tell my uncle. Avad has too much on his mind right now, what with Ersa’s death and all.”

Daradi shook her head. “No, this isn’t something worth involving the palace in.”

“Oh, nonsense. Agenin, give me that.” She took his pen and the parchment before he could hand it over, writing a quick message on it before folding it up. “You, Felanot. Be useful for once and take this to my uncle. Right now.”

He didn’t even look at his commander for permission as he took the note with pursed lips and left. Hela smiled at her.

“Don’t worry about it, dear. Avad is always happy to help, especially with reasonable requests like this, and my uncle knows that I wouldn’t ask for something if I didn’t think it was warranted.”

“But he’s the _king.”_

“Good of you to notice.”

Agenin laughed. “My lady, I can assure you that His Radiance won’t find this an unreasonable request at all. He may well not even notice - Marad has a good deal of leeway to do as he pleases. This is a minor enough request that he may not even tell Avad about it.”

Daradi still wasn’t convinced, but the message had already been sent and she couldn’t do anything about it now. So she sighed, and nodded.

“Alright. I appreciate your help. Thank you.”

“Oh, it is my _absolute_ pleasure.”

Her words were willed with enough innuendo that Daradi was vaguely surprised that all of their clothes hadn’t spontaneously fallen off. Agenin was shaking his head, clearly used to it. Then Hela stood and held her hand out to Daradi.

“Well, come alone. I’ve work to do, and I’m behind. Agenin, darling, do tell Felanot that he is an _absolute_ pile of bung and not welcome for a week.”

The commander laughed again as he walked them out. “Your wish is my command.”

“By the Sun, I hope so.”

Daradi murmured a farewell and walked out arm-in-arm with Hela. “Are you _sure_ that asking your uncle for help won’t be a problem?”

She got an almost motherly pat on the hand. “Of course, dear.”

“I just … I feel bad for asking.”

“You aren’t. I am.”

Daradi sighed, and as soon as they were back at the inn, lay down. It was barely midday, but the morning had exhausted her. She curled up on her side and stared at the wardrobe on the other side of the room, trying not to think about the previous day and failing. Even crying herself to sleep didn’t help - the nightmares started and didn’t stop until she was gently shaken awake.

“Daradi, darling, the accountant is here.”

“Uh?” The room was lit with afternoon sunlight, and Daradi rubbed her eyes as she sat up. “How long was I asleep?”

“Only a few hours.” Hela was grinning. “I told you that my uncle would help. He sent someone right away. Are you well enough to see him?”

She supposed she had to be, and nodded. Hela helped her get presentable, then opened the door and ushered in a squat, heavyset man in circular spectacles, holding a thick leather folder, a quill pen behind his ear.

“Balsoon, this is Lady Daradi. Daradi, Balsoon.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” he squeaked as he took and kissed her hand, “but a sorrow to meet you under these circumstances. My condolences for your loss.” He opened his folder and took out an envelope with the seal of the Accountant’s Guild, as well as a thinner envelope that was sealed with the official wax stamp of the king, handing it to her. “My credentials and letter of recommendation from His Radiance himself.”

“He means that my uncle wrote it, then put it in front of Avad to sign and seal,” Hela put in as Daradi opened it. “He probably didn’t even notice.”

_“That’s_ comforting,” Daradi muttered. True enough, the glyphs of the letter and the glyphs of the king’s name, while both elegant, were still distinctly different.

_My esteemed Lady Daradi,_

_I hope this letter finds you in good health. I was deeply saddened to hear about your family's tragic passing. Please accept my condolences._

__

__

During this difficult time, I would like to offer you any assistance you require. I have dispatched a contingent of the city guard to assist with your resettlement in Meridian - they will escort you back and forth as needed, and you need but to speak with Commander Agenin when you need them. I have also made my most trusted accountant, Balsoon, available to assist with your finances until you or one of your own advisors can take over. 

_ If there is anything else which would ease any difficulties you might experience, do not hesitate in sending correspondence at once. The Sundom will take care of its own._

_May your night be over and your dawn come soon,  
Sun-King Avad_

She really wanted to scream, but had no real reason to. Where had the king’s help been while her family had been murdered? How had the Sundom been taking care of its own _then?_

She didn’t realize that she had crumpled the letter into her fist until Hela was gently unclenching it. She was shaking. Hela sat her down and poured her some wine, and Balsoon nodded in a sort of bow.

“I am, unfortunately, experienced in this sort of situation,” he told her gently. “Anger is not uncommon. I take no offense.”

Daradi just looked down and nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm just saying hela's pretty damn cool ok of course i wasn't gonna kill her off in factions

**Author's Note:**

> the actual title of this story is "daradi fucking rules"


End file.
